Link Arms Against the Attackers: Observations from the 2016 Cisco ASR

By Martin Nystrom Remember 2007, when the underground economy began to flourish, using simple protocols and static subnet ranges to control their infrastructure? That was the same year Cisco published the first Annual Security Report (ASR) . Nine years later, the drumbeat of cyberthreats grow louder, but the actors and threats are familiar, just as John reminded us when this year’s report was released. What’s Changed? Attackers have vastly increased the sophistication of their infrastructure, incorporated evasive techniques such as encryption and obfuscation, and diversified their revenue streams through ransomware . Defenders are sharing cyber threat intelligence and recognizing []

Source:: Cisco Security Notice

Hiding in Plain Sight: Malware’s Use of TLS and Encryption

By Blake Anderson Introduction TLS (Transport Layer Security) is a cryptographic protocol that provides privacy for applications. TLS is usually implemented on top of common protocols such as HTTP for web browsing or SMTP for email. HTTPS is the usage of TLS over HTTP, which is the most popular way of securing communication between a web server and client and is supported by the bulk of major web servers. As TLS has become more popular and easier to use, we have seen the []

Source:: Cisco Security Notice

Hiding in Plain Sight: Malware’s Use of TLS and Encryption

By Blake Anderson Introduction TLS (Transport Layer Security) is a cryptographic protocol that provides privacy for applications. TLS is usually implemented on top of common protocols such as HTTP for web browsing or SMTP for email. HTTPS is the usage of TLS over HTTP, which is the most popular way of securing communication between a web server and client and is supported by the bulk of major web servers. As TLS has become more popular and easier to use, we have seen the []

Source:: Cisco Security Notice

Overcoming the DNS “Blind Spot”

By John Stuppi [ed. note – this post was authored jointly by John Stuppi and Dan Hubbard ] The Domain Name Service (DNS) provides the IP addresses of intended domain names in response to queries from requesting end hosts. Because many threat actors today are leveraging DNS to compromise end hosts monitoring DNS is often a critical step in identifying and containing malware infections and investigating attacks. Yet our research found that few organizations actually monitor DNS for security purposes—or at all—which makes DNS a security “blind []

Source:: Cisco Security Notice

Overcoming the DNS “Blind Spot”

By John Stuppi [ed. note – this post was authored jointly by John Stuppi and Dan Hubbard ] The Domain Name Service (DNS) provides the IP addresses of intended domain names in response to queries from requesting end hosts. Because many threat actors today are leveraging DNS to compromise end hosts monitoring DNS is often a critical step in identifying and containing malware infections and investigating attacks. Yet our research found that few organizations actually monitor DNS for security purposes—or at all—which makes DNS a security “blind []

Source:: Cisco Security Notice

Why Aging Infrastructure Is a Growing Problem

By Anthony Grieco Defending a network against threats of growing complexity requires a mix of technology and policies that are as sophisticated as the campaigns created by attackers. A necessary component to an efffective defense includes tackling the low-hanging fruit—that is, basic tasks such as patching vulnerabilities and updating old software. However, as we relate in the Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report too many organizations are relying on seriously outdated network components and operating systems—thus providing even more opportunity for adversaries to infiltrate or attack their network. As []

Source:: Cisco Security Notice

Why Aging Infrastructure Is a Growing Problem

By Anthony Grieco Defending a network against threats of growing complexity requires a mix of technology and policies that are as sophisticated as the campaigns created by attackers. A necessary component to an efffective defense includes tackling the low-hanging fruit—that is, basic tasks such as patching vulnerabilities and updating old software. However, as we relate in the Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report too many organizations are relying on seriously outdated network components and operating systems—thus providing even more opportunity for adversaries to infiltrate or attack their network. As []

Source:: Cisco Security Notice

The Value of Collaboration in Weakening Attackers

By Craig Williams Today’s attackers deploy complex and clever threats that are difficult to combat with just one method of defense. In some cases, defenders must go beyond tools for detecting attacks and devise a different approach for obstructing our adversaries‘ ability to operate.
As detailed in the Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report

Source:: Cisco Security Notice

The Value of Collaboration in Weakening Attackers

By Craig Williams Today’s attackers deploy complex and clever threats that are difficult to combat with just one method of defense. In some cases, defenders must go beyond tools for detecting attacks and devise a different approach for obstructing our adversaries‘ ability to operate.
As detailed in the Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report

Source:: Cisco Security Notice

Forewarned Is Forearmed: Announcing the 2016 Cisco Annual Security Report

By John Stewart Our just-released 2016 Cisco Annual Security Report (ASR) presents a challenging cybersecurity landscape: cyber defense teams are fighting to keep up with rapid global digitization while trying to integrate dozens of vendor solutions, speed up detection, and educate their organizations from top to bottom. Meanwhile attackers grow more bold, flexible, and resilient by the day, setting up professional infrastructures that look a lot like what we’d find in legitimate businesses. On the global front, we see fluctuations in cyber Internet governance across regions, which []

Source:: Cisco Security Notice