Exabeam News Wrap-up – September 5, 2022

We’ll be regularly bringing you a summary of Exabeam’s key topics and headlines. Stay up to date with the Exabeam News Wrap-up!

FBI Alert: Hackers Leverage Residential Proxies and Custom Configs To Execute Credential Stuffing Attacks

The FBI recently issued a warning about the use of proxies and configurations to conceal and automate credential phishing attacks. In CPO Magazine, Exabeam President Ralph Pisani shares his insights on how companies can properly mitigate leaked credentials.

He says the cybersecurity industry must rethink the use of passwords to stop attacks before they succeed. “Credentials are supposed to be the castle’s front gates – they are the new perimeter, but SOCs still fail to detect credential-based attacks,” Pisani says. He recommends “proper education, feedback loops, visibility, and effective technical capabilities” to address leaked credentials.

Los Angeles Unified School District Seeks To Recover From A Ransomware Attack

This week, the Los Angeles Unified School District was hit by a ransomware attack. In CyberWire, Exabeam chief security strategist Steve Moore laments the wave of attacks against under-resourced institutions that provide valuable public services. “People still have a diluted perspective on ransomware,” Moore says.

“Ransomware is a missed intrusion, period,” explains Moore. “Ransomware is on the rise because of these three reasons: 1. We never fixed the core problems (break the cycle of compromise), which allow it to occur; 2. It’s profitable for the adversary — therefore, vast incentive; 3. It detects itself, so the reported numbers increase — so anyone can ‘find’ it.”

How Businesses Can Implement Stronger Security Measures To Counter Cyber Attacks

In a Q&A interview with iTWire, Exabeam vice president of sales for APJ Gareth Cox answers a series of questions about Exabeam, gives honest insight into the current cyberthreat landscape in Australia, and advises what Australian organizations can do to thwart and counter the rising cases of cyberattacks. “With COVID, phishing attacks and attacks in general have gone up over 800%. There is an attack every eight minutes. It’s just getting worse and worse and worse,” Cox says.

He goes on to explain that the COVID-related acceleration of cloud adoption has reduced the visibility that investigators are able to achieve. “If companies aren’t adopting solutions to help their investigators automate a number of the tasks to understand what is going on in the organization, then plugging your system into cloud service providers is making it even harder,” says Cox. “You need to get full visibility of what your new network and new environment looks post-COVID. I think that if you don’t tackle that quickly you’re definitely exposed.”