October 17-23, 2024 | Issue 42 - CICYBER
Chiara Cerisola, Mercedes Sheible, CICYBER
Angelina Sammarco, Editor; Alya Fathia Fitri, Senior Editor
Global Cyber Attacks[1]
Date: October 17, 2024
Location: Global
Parties involved: North Korea; Russia; China; NATO countries; Asia-Pacific region; cybersecurity company Netskope; Microsoft
The event: Netskope revealed this week that nearly two-thirds of attributable malware were connected to state-affiliated actors of countries such as North Korea, Russia, and China, and targeted critical infrastructure like energy, healthcare, and government.[2]
Analysis & Implications:
State actors like Russia and China will very likely focus on using malware, such as ransomware or spyware, to disrupt critical infrastructure and gather intelligence from political opponents such as NATO countries. These actors will likely invest in malware techniques to bypass advanced security measures, likely gaining prolonged access to sensitive systems, such as government databases, and inflicting increasing damages. The strategic deployment of such malware will very likely escalate cyber conflicts, likely forcing NATO governments to enhance intelligence-sharing efforts through networks like the NATO Cyber Defence Pledge. This escalation will likely strain existing threat intelligence platforms or incident response teams, and require greater investment from the public and private sectors in proactive defense measures and training.
Attackers will very likely adopt increasingly advanced and evasive malware techniques, such as polymorphic ransomware and fileless attacks. These evolving tactics will likely create challenges for cybersecurity teams attempting to identify, monitor, and neutralize cyber threats. This shift will very likely drive up infection rates, leading to higher financial costs for containment and recovery for targeted companies and governments in the Asia-Pacific region. Organizations like government agencies and healthcare networks will likely be compelled to adopt cutting-edge detection tools like AI, machine learning systems, and threat-hunting capabilities to counter these emerging threats effectively.
Critical infrastructure sectors, such as healthcare and energy, will very likely be severely affected by these malware attacks and experience long-term operational disruptions. Successful attacks in these areas will almost certainly result in significant service outages, data loss, and reputational harm. The interconnected nature of critical sectors will very likely intensify the effects of these attacks and lead to widespread infrastructure failures, as energy disruptions can spread to others, like healthcare, worsening the overall impact. As the frequency and severity of these attacks persist, public trust in the safety and reliability of essential services will likely diminish, creating broader societal instability.
Date: October 20, 2024
Location: Global
Parties involved: North Korea; North Korean IT workers; US; Canada; UK; Australia; China; Russia; Western businesses; local authorities
The event: North Korean IT workers are reportedly posing as freelancers in Western countries like the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, using false identities to secure tech industry jobs to steal intellectual property and demand ransoms while operating through intermediaries in China and Russia to obscure their origins, which authorities warn significantly impacts Western businesses and national security.[3]
Analysis & Implications:
North Korean IT workers will very likely use evasion techniques such as VPNs, encrypted tunnels, and obfuscated malware to hide their real locations and bypass monitoring systems. These techniques will very likely allow them to maintain covert access to sensitive networks, such as classified information, financial data, and strategic resources, for extended periods and complicate detection efforts. Encryption and advanced tunneling techniques, like SSL/TLS encryption and IPSec tunneling, will likely pose challenges in isolating and mitigating the malicious activities within compromised systems. The North Korean IT workers’ operations will likely target industries that require minimal face-to-face interactions, such as ghostwriting, offshore programming, and penetration testing, where digital presence suffices for operations.
Freelance platforms exploitation like Upwork and Fiverr will very likely focus on vulnerabilities in identity verification protocols and authentication processes to infiltrate sensitive networks for financial gain or intelligence gathering. Many of these systems heavily rely on AI to verify images, which can be easily manipulated and do not require government-issued IDs for verification, very likely creating significant security gaps such as unauthorized access, identity fraud, and infiltration of sensitive networks. This technical flaw in platform architecture will likely enable North Korean actors to access Western networks by using falsified credentials without raising red flags. As companies adopt increasingly remote work operations, the weaknesses in online hiring platforms will likely amplify risks and allow actors to access critical systems, such as financial databases, healthcare records, and defense networks, likely complicating cybersecurity defense efforts.
The alignment of North Korean IT workers with state-sponsored objectives will likely serve North Korea's goals of funding weapons programs, gathering intelligence on adversaries, and destabilizing critical sectors like defense to enhance military capabilities and counter international sanctions. Using the stolen data will almost certainly weaken the strategic position of Western nations by obtaining sensitive information on military locations, personal details of politicians, insights into national budgets, and intelligence for potential doxxing attacks. This situation will likely force governments and companies to enhance cooperation in protecting sensitive infrastructure from further cyberattacks by creating national databases to track these threats, improving intelligence-sharing mechanisms, and developing joint cybersecurity frameworks to detect and mitigate vulnerabilities. Not implementing such measures will likely escalate the risk of compromised data and likely lead to the increased risk of exploitation of critical sectors, including defense.
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[1] Global Cyber Attacks, generated by third party database
[2] Two-thirds of Attributable Malware Linked to Nation States, Infosecurity Magazine, October 2024, https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/twothirds-attributable-malware/
[3] North Korean IT Workers in Western Firms Now Demanding Ransom for Stolen Data, The Hacker News, October 2024, https://thehackernews.com/2024/10/north-korean-it-workers-in-western.html