DOJ Charges Hackers from the Chinese People Liberation Army with 2016 Equifax Data Breach



chinese-equifax-hackFour hackers have been charged with hacking the U.S. credit reporting agency where data on U.S. citizens and proprietary Equifax secrets were stolen.
 
The saga finally comes to some resemblance of closure. One of the world’s largest data breaches – a total of nearly 150 million records – puts names to its’ assailants.
 
This week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against four Chinese hackers believed to be associated with the Chinese government. Leveraging a java vulnerability and compromised credentials to move laterally within Equifax’s network, the hackers were able to slowly exfiltrate data over a period of 76 days. 
 
According to security vendor CrowdStrike, web server attacks – like the one responsible for the initial access to Equifax – are the second most prevalent attack vector. The number one attack vector (by more than a factor of 2:1 over web server attacks) remains spear-phishing. Bad guy attachments and links dominate, putting unsuspecting users firmly in attack crosshairs.
 
The Equifax attack should be a warning to ensure all web-facing applications and systems are constantly in an updated state. Vulnerability scanning is a great advanced step to ensure this is the case. But equally, organizations need to heed the data demonstrating clearly that the greater threat is email-borne attacks seeking to fool users into clicking on malicious content.
 
Organizations can employ Security Awareness Training as a means to keep users constantly updated on attack methods, social engineering tactics, new scams – and what to do about it should they come across an attack like this.
 
There will be plenty more attacks – hopefully none in the cyber stratosphere like the Equifax breach. It’s imperative to ensure your users – just like your web servers – are kept up to date on the latest methods of attack to minimize the threat surface.

Can hackers spoof an email address of your own domain?

DSTAre you aware that one of the first things hackers try is to see if they can spoof the email address of your CEO? If they are able to commit "CEO Fraud", penetrating your network is like taking candy from a baby.

Now they can launch a "CEO fraud" spear phishing attack on your organization, and that type of attack is very hard to defend against, unless your users are highly ‘security awareness’ trained.

Find out now if your domain can be spoofed. The Domain Spoof Test (DST) is a one-time free service. Run this test so you can address any mail server configuration issues that are found.

Try To Spoof Me!

PS: Don't like to click on redirected buttons? Cut & Paste this link in your browser:

https://www.knowbe4.com/domain-spoof-test/



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