15 Cybersecurity Lessons We Should Have Learned From 2015, But Probably Didnt
Another infosec year is almost in the books. What did all the breaches, vulnerabilities, trends, and controversies teach us?
As is the case every year in the cybersecurity field, 2015 was full of lessons to be learned. Some brand-new, others that its absurd we havent learned from yet.
1. Pay For Your Room In Cash.
Retailers were in hit hard in 2014, but in 2015 point-of-sale hacks really moved over to the hospitality sector. Just Thursday,
Hyatt Hotels announced
it was the last to be breached (it had discovered the incident Nov. 30). Before that
Hilton Worldwide
, Mandarin Oriental, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts (the owner of Sheraton, Westin, and W Hotels) all suffered breaches due to similar attacks. It isnt just credit card data that is appetizing to attackers, either. Info about loyalty programs is
hot on the black market
, too.
2. Take The Train Instead.
This was the year when car hacking really got taken seriously. Security researchers Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller conducted a
controversial demonstration
taking remote control of a Jeep Cherokee and bringing it to a screeching stop. The Virginia
State Police showed their cruisers could be compromised
and researchers showed
SMS messages sent to insurance dongles
can kill brakes on cars. The issue got so unavoidable that
Chrysler recalled 1.4 million vehicles
and
Intel founded a Car Security Review Board
.
3. Trust Apple, But Not As Much.
Although security researchers agree that
the state of Apple security
is still far better than Android, but the trusted development environment took some serious hits this year. XCodeGhost snuck Trojanized iOS apps into the official App Store, a variety of proof-of-concept exploits in Gatekeeper allow unsigned code to run on OS X, and malware for iOS and Mac is increasing.
4. The Encryption Backdoor Debate Is Not Going Away.
The U.S. intelligence agencies may have retreated periodically --
backing off on demands for encryption backdoors
, and focusing instead on end-to-end encryption -- but that doesnt mean the conversation is over. With every new terrorist act, the threat of having liberties and privacy taken away becomes greater, and the encryption discussion has even become part of Presidential debates.
5. Dont Get Sick.
Over the past 10 years, more than
one-quarter of reported data breaches
happened in the healthcare industry, according to Trend Micro. This year, the PHI exposures at medical insurers were of gobsmacking dimensions -- 10 million records exposed by
Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS)
, 11 million by
CareFirst BCBS
, 11 million by
Premera BCBS
, 250,000 by LifeWise, and a stomach-turning 80 million from
Anthem Healthcare
.
6. Exporting Exploits and Hoarding 0-Days Are Bad...Unless Youre A Government.
Proposed updates to the
Wassenaar Arrangement
this year (which are getting another look, thanks to the advocacy efforts of security professionals) would put tight restrictions on US companies ability to export intrusion software internationally. Yet, the breach of Italian surveillance company
Hacking Team
revealed that many government agencies, including the FBI, purchased surveillance, exploit tools, and zero-day vulnerabilities from the firm. An FBI official recently publicly
admitted that the Bureau buys zero-days
and the
NSA says it discloses 90 percent
of the vulnerabilities it finds, but didnt reveal how quickly it does so.
7. Flash Will Survive The Apocalypse.
Adobe Flash has been riddled with critical vulnerabilities this year, including some
zero-days revealed in the Hacking Team leaks
. US-CERT released an advisory, Mozilla stopped running Flash by default, and Facebooks security chief demanded Adobe announce a date of-death for Flash. Yet, the technology persists. So, Flash is in the same category as cockroaches and ticks. Everyone wants them to die, but try as they might, they just cant kill them. So, really, if you want your manifesto to still be viewable after the collosal supervolcano or sentient robot uprising, build it in Flash.
8. Government Jobs Arent Really So Secure.
The
breach at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management
resulted in the exposure of personal data on anyone whos had a background check via OPM going back to the year 2000. In all, 21.5 million peoples Social Security numbers, residency and employment history, family, health, and financial history as well as
fingerprints on 5.6 million people were exposed.
9. Keep Backups. No, Really.
Ransomware was everywhere
in 2015, and theres no reason to expect its growth will stop or slow down. Research found that ransomware use was growing, the malware itself was growing more sophisticated, the business models were becoming more varied, it had an exceptionally high return on investment, and many targets were helpless against it. Even several police departments simply paid up when they couldnt recover their assets any other way.
10. Extortionists Have More Than Ransomware At Their Disposal.
In addition to the criminals using ransomware to extort mpney from victims, there are bad guys gathering their Bitcoins from
DDoS,
doxing, or other cyber-enhanced blackmail threats. The
Ashley Madison breach
gave extortionists, blackmailers, and the average unscrupulous capitalist plenty of opportunities to collect.
11. Manage Privileged Users Better.
Study
, after
study
, after
study
this year revealed that privileged accounts need to be better managed. It isnt just that the credentials themselves are too weak, but sometimes theyre poorly monitored, too widely shared, and theyre not efficiently revoked when employees leave an organization.
12. Watch Out For Insiders.
Another reason to manage privileged accounts is that not all who are privileged are trustworthy. 2015 kicked off with news that
Morgan Stanley fired a wealth advisor
who accessed data on about 10 percent of its client roster and publicly posted details for 900 of them online.
13. Start Making Friends at the FTC.
The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled
that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission could move forward with its lawsuit that alleged Wyndam Worldwide hotel chain should be held responsible for leaving its customer data unprotected. The ruling effectively gives the FTC the power to regulate the security practices of businesses.
14. Everyone Could Be A Target Of Cyber Espionage.
Whether its the
St. Louis Cardinals hacking the Houston Astros,
cybercriminals attacking Kaspersky Lab
to stay ahead of their threat intelligence, or operators of a
shadowy illegal online gambling business
hacking their third-party software provider to make sure their work for a competing gambling company wasnt a threat to their business, the takeaway is that cyber-espionage can happen to anyone.
15. Beware The Thing.
Cars and drones, Fitbits and smart fridges, baby monitors and Hello Barbie, satellites and smart cities...security vulnerabilities were found all over the Internet of Things this year. The
coolest hacks this year
were all at that intersection between the physical and the virtual and the FBI even came out with a warning about the cybersecurity risks of IoT devices. Luckily, new organizations are arising to try to
fix IoT security
before it gets completely out of hand.
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15 Cybersecurity Lessons We Should Have Learned From 2015, But Probably Didnt