A few days ago we published a summary of six of the most important security attacks in 2014.

Today we continue this list with some other notable attacks, which stood out not just because of the stature of the companies attacked, but also because of the volume of compromised data.

Major security attacks in 2014 – Part 2

1. KCB and the theft of 106 million accounts
   

   

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   The Korean financial agency, Korea Credit Bureau (KCB), was the victim of an attack that exposed more than 105,8million user accounts, including credit card details, first names and last names, phone numbers, addresses and even passport numbers.

   In this case however, no malware was used. The thief worked for KCB -ironically in the company’s anti-fraud department- and for 11 months had been copying the data before selling it to the highest bidder.

   Had the information been adequately encrypted, the damage could have been far less, yet this wasn’t the case.

2. Orange: The importance of storing passwords on a secure server
   

   In February, a vulnerability on the website of the French telecom firm Orange allowed hackers to access the data of hundreds of thousands of customers, including names, addresses and phone numbers.

   Fortunately, and despite the security hole, Orange’s systems were sufficiently well set up as to prevent passwords from being compromised, thereby greatly reducing the damage to the 800,000 users affected.

   It appears that these passwords were stored on a separate, more secure server.

3. SEA compromises Forbes’ security
   

   Also in February, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) managed to compromise the website of Forbes. This resulted in the theft of data of more than a million users, including company employees.

   Stolen data included names and email addresses, as well as (encrypted) passwords. Worse still, the SEA published the data on the Internet.

4. Data of 650,000 customers stolen from Domino’s Pizza
   

   In June this year, the Domino’s Pizza fast-food chain was attacked by a group called “Rex Mundi”, and the data of some 650,000 French and Belgian customers was stolen.

   In this case, the criminals demanded a ransom for the information, though the company’s chiefs said they were not willing to give in to blackmail.

5. Attack on DIY giant Home Depot

   

   In September, Home Depot, the home improvements retailer, confirmed there had been an attack on its servers, compromising the data of 56 million credit and debit cards.

   Moreover, according to the The Wall Street Journal, some of the accounts associated to these cards had been emptied.

6. Sony
   

   To end 2014, we have witnessed one of the most significant targeted attacks on a company.

   Many details of the attack are still unclear, but the effects on Sony have been tremendous: a week without being able to connect to computers, massive deletion of data, theft of internal company information…

   The attackers have published five unreleased films and are threatening to leak confidential data.

   There have also been reports of malware appearing with Sony’s digital signature, the passwords for which were stolen with the rest of the information.

The post Major security attacks in 2014 – Part 2 appeared first on MediaCenter Panda Security.

We don’t know what next year has in store for us, yet predictions are always useful to be better prepared for what might be around the corner. This also applies to IT security. If we analyze current trends in vulnerabilities and attacks, we may be able to forecast patterns for the future and avoid the dangers.

The Spanish government’s National Intelligence Center publishes annual reports detailing the main threats to businesses and organizations, and those that can be expected to be prevalent the following year.  Here we outline the eleven most notable dangers expected in 2015 so you can start to take measures before it’s too late.

1. Cyber-espionage has been the single greatest threat in recent years and this can be expected to continue over the next few months. Cyber-criminals will continue working to improve methods to attack organizations and companies, as well as making them more difficult to detect.
   The simplest strategy is to choose targets with the least protection, such as contractors, suppliers or private computers. They often use social networks to gather basic information and then use the data on Web services and email.

   

2. It is also important to keep a close eye on a factor that is often ignored: outdated operating systems. Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP last April, so any vulnerabilities discovered since then won’t be patched, making it an easy target for criminals.
3. Next year, just as we have witnessed in the last few months, there will be no shortage of ‘watering hole’ attacks. In this strategy, cyber-criminals observe the websites most visited often by an organization and then infect the pages with malware knowing that sooner or later some computers in the targeted organization will be infected.
4. Something else to bear in mind when talking about threats to companies are mobile devices, as a lot of corporate data now passes through them. The best thing is to protect both smartphones and tablets with an antivirus for Android.
5. Social networks also represent a possible entry point for cyber-criminals. The professional or personal profiles of employees on sites like LinkedIn or Facebook can be used to get to their email addresses. They are then sent malware via email in the hope of compromising the company’s systems.
6. Many attacks target data stored in the cloud, as well as that stored on corporate networks. If the information is not properly protected, it can be easy to access files in the cloud. You can never take too many precautions when protecting data from threats.
7. Another negative statistic is that studies indicate the increasingly sophisticated and damaging malicious code in circulation takes longer to detect. The same thing goes for the removal of malware from infected systems.
8. Complex attacks on large companies with many systems and admin platforms can go undetected for long periods of time.
9. However, attacks are no longer limited to computers. Many phone lines are associated to inter-communicating systems, such as alarms or dataphones. ‘Machine to machine’ or M2M communication is the basis for the ‘Internet of Things’.
10. Home automation systems and devices, as well as industrial control systems, have begun to suffer from the first attacks by malicious software. Embedded systems in security cameras and monitors could be compromised if the program developer does not implement adequate protection measures.
11. Cybercrime is constantly developing new strategies to evade ASLR mechanisms. This automatic process protects the security of operating systems by saving key program data on strategic areas of the hard disk to prevent hackers from deliberately accessing it.

We’ve given you a few pointers, it’s now in your hands to prevent these sorts of attacks. Keeping your computers protected with a corporate antivirus and updating your software are two key practices that you should encourage in your company.

The post Prevention is better than cure: These eleven threats could compromise your corporate systems in 2015 appeared first on MediaCenter Panda Security.