Overview

In this exclusive webinar, CyberMaxx CISO Thomas Pioreck will walk you through a real-world breach scenario—highlighting the critical decisions that can either prevent or escalate a cyber crisis.

Key takeaways:

• The full impact of cyber-attacks—beyond financial loss
• How integrated cybersecurity tools can stop threats in their tracks
• Lessons from organizations that successfully defended against attacks

This session is essential for business leaders, IT professionals, and anyone responsible for safeguarding operations.

Featuring:
Lisa Burke, Chief Customer Officer at CyberMaxx| Thomas Pioreck, CISO at CyberMaxx | Lee Crockett, Director of Sales at Advanced Logic

The post On Demand Webinar: Avoiding Your Worst Day – What Every Business Leader Needs to Know About Cybersecurity appeared first on CyberMaxx.

Cybersecurity faces a new frontier: Synthetic identity fraud and AI-driven phishing. These threats impersonate trusted individuals. They utilize generative AI to create convincing fakes and bypass traditional defenses.

It’s time to expose these digital doppelgangers!

What is Synthetic Identity Fraud?

Synthetic identity fraud is not traditional identity theft. Attackers don’t steal a single person’s identity. Instead, they fabricate new ones.

Building Identities with Real and Fake Data

Synthetic identity fraud is like building Frankenstein. It uses stolen or made-up elements (in this case, personal information, not body parts) and combines them to create a persona.

Fraudsters take real Social Security Numbers (SSNs) and addresses, sprinkle in some fake names with background information, and voilà — a fake identity that seems legitimate.
Why Synthetic Identities Are Hard to Detect
Synthetic identities are patient. Once cybercriminals create a believable persona, they nurture and develop it over time. They’ll, for instance:

• Open bank accounts and credit lines, and build financial histories
• Pay bills (but only in small amounts)
• Establish an online footprint (email address, social accounts, etc.)
• Apply to jobs

It’s the diligence and patience that make these more complex. Blatantly stolen identities are relatively easy to detect. One red flag, like suddenly appearing across the country or a personal data mismatch, and the jig is up.

With synthetic identities, however, those mismatches never appear. Victims remain unaware because attackers fabricate the persona from the ground up. It’s so challenging to find, in fact, that fraud losses from this attack hit $35 billion in 2023.

What starts as a fabricated digital persona can quickly escalate when paired with AI; these identities evolve into tools for convincing impersonation and social engineering.

Deepfakes and AI-Driven Social Engineering

Artificial intelligence (AI) threats take these nuances a step further. After creating a convincing profile, AI delivers convincing impersonation attacks via deepfake social engineering, making them dangerously persuasive.

Voice Cloning for Business Email Compromise (BEC)

Imagine this: You get an urgent call from your boss. At least you assume it is your boss because the voice sounds identical. They instruct you to send $100,000 to a specific account to make a late payment to a vendor. In reality, a cybercriminal is behind the voice.

In the past, attackers would craft legitimate-looking emails appearing to be from a trusted sender (email spoofing). Of course, email security tools have improved in spotting the scams.

Fast-forward to today, and attackers scrape voice samples from social media to clone accents and speech patterns. These voice and video impersonation attacks are common in AI-driven phishing campaigns. In 2024, over 105,000 deepfake attacks were reported, resulting in $200 million loss in just Q1.

Video Deepfakes in Remote Work Environments

Video deepfakes take social engineering a step further. With so much adoption of Zoom and other video conferencing tools, every conversation has to be legit, right?

Sadly, no. Deepfake technology can animate a still image (using AI) to make it appear as if someone is speaking live. You might think you’re talking to a work colleague when, in reality, it’s a sophisticated cybercriminal.

Like voice cloning, they’ll use this attack to authorize fraudulent transactions or extract sensitive information.

These aren’t just hypotheticals. Organizations across industries are already experiencing high-profile attacks that show the financial and operational damage of synthetic identities and deepfakes.

Real-World Examples of Synthetic Identity and Deepfake Attacks

The theoretical is now reality. Synthetic identities resulted in over $3.3 billion in lending exposure to individuals who aren’t even real. These false profiles and deepfakes can truly hit victims hard. Here are some high-profile cases:

High-Dollar Financial Fraud Cases

Financial institutions, large and small, have fallen victim to fraud by synthetic identities. Some notable cases include:

• New York Bank scam: Dozens of conspirators used synthetic identities to steal nearly $1 million from multiple New York banks and illegally take COVID relief funds.
• 2017 Georgia bank fraud: An Atlanta, Georgia resident used stolen SSNs to create synthetic identities. He defrauded banks out of $2 million in credit and loans.
• Decade-long Ontario scheme: In 2024, 12 individuals in Ontario, Canada, created over 680 synthetic identities to open fake accounts and credit lines. This scheme resulted in over $4 million in confirmed losses.

Deepfake Impersonation in Corporate Environments

Your everyday employees have also fallen victim. In one wild case in Hong Kong, a finance employee thought he was on a video conference with the CFO and a few other colleagues.

It turns out that every person on that call was a deepfake. They ultimately persuaded him to transfer nearly $25.6 million to fraudulent accounts. What’s crazier is that the team of fraudsters all stole citizen identity cards for data to create synthetic identities. There were 90 loan applications and 54 bank account registrations before the attack.

Another case targeted the CEO of the world’s largest advertising group. Though unsuccessful, scammers created a fake WhatsApp account pretending to be the CEO. They then set up a Microsoft

Teams meeting with the employee and used YouTube video footage to create a voice clone of the executive. The goal: Convince the victims to set up a new business to solicit money and personal information.

With incidents like these already costing millions, the question becomes not if but how organizations can verify identities and detect AI-powered fraud before damage occurs.

Detection and Verification Methods

No one seems safe anymore. The best practice for phishing emails used to be call-and-confirm. But with voice cloning and deepfakes, that doesn’t seem as foolproof.

Proactiveness and layered defenses are the best bet against the AI revolution and sophisticated attackers.

Multi-Layered Identity Verification

Relying on a single data point is obsolete. Companies must layer their controls with mechanisms that cybercriminals can’t deepfake.

Biometric authentication, such as fingerprinting, facial recognition, and eye scans, is nearly impossible to break. Each individual carries unique data, so scammers cannot replicate it.

Users also have unique behavioral patterns. After all, we are creatures of habit. Some log in at specific time windows, only use certain apps or devices, and exhibit online patterns (such as keystrokes, navigation, etc.). Set baselines for “normal” and continuously monitor to spot anomalies that could indicate a threat.

Deepfake Detection Technologies

Fortunately, the security industry became aware of deepfake technology early. Specialized tools can now analyze digital media for signs of manipulation.

Unnatural eye blinking? Probably fake. Inconsistent lighting or weird audio glitches? Another tell-tale. For audio-specific deep fakes, algorithms can also detect the synthetic lack of breath sounds or unnatural cadence.

Human-in-the-Loop Verification Workflows

Consider the human advantage. While people are the biggest liability to security, we can also set controls that technology cannot.

Implement protocols like mandatory callbacks to a verified number for payment approvals. Or dual-authorization requirements, where multiple users must review and approve requests. And if it’s unusual or invoking urgency and secrecy, manually review with your own eyes.

These verification methods are most effective when integrated into a comprehensive security strategy. CyberMaxx’s MDR approach offers unique value in that role.

CyberMaxx’s Role in Protecting Against Emerging Threats

CyberMaxx integrates defense against these nuanced threats directly into our Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service. Rather than wait, we constantly hunt, looking for signs of fabrication.

Integrating Threat Intelligence for Social Engineering

Attackers use new tactics, techniques, and procedures every day. Our intelligence feeds stay agile to anticipate and counter those moves.

Our team continuously monitors the evolving methods of synthetic identity fraud and emerging deepfake tools. Using data from dark web and criminal forums, threat research reports, and Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) threads, our defenses stay one step ahead.

Proactive Response to Identity and Deepfake Threats

Is there a potential indicator of an impersonation or social engineering attack? No matter how subtle, our team is on the scene.

We’ll correlate identity verification failures, network anomalies, and suspicious communication patterns to uncover coordinated campaigns. With our fast, guided response, our team quickly identifies and removes cyber threats before they can trick employees.

Value for CyberMaxx Clients

Real-time, integrated defense sets CyberMaxx apart. You don’t have time to evaluate countless data sources and determine whether a request is legit or fake.

We integrate deepfake and synthetic identity detection into the core of our MDR service. A single, unified view of threats across endpoints, identities, and cloud environments that prevents threat actors from hiding.

The lesson is clear: threats are advancing fast, but with the right partner, organizations can stay a step ahead.

Staying Ahead of Synthetic Identity Fraud and AI-Powered Threats

Deepfake fraud cases are on the rise. From 2022 to 2023, there was a 1,740% surge in cases across North America. This surge isn’t an emerging threat; it’s already here.

But CyberMaxx is here to defend your trust layer against AI-powered impersonation. With advanced detection and proactive response, you can combat social engineering tactics and stay resilient in the deepfake era.

The post Detecting Deepfakes and Synthetic Identities Before They Breach appeared first on CyberMaxx.

Threat actors have found a simple loophole: Rather than confronting MFA head-on, why not simply bypass it? Through exploiting technical nuances and common human flaws, they’ve turned a foundational security control into a false sense of comfort.

It’s a new battlefront, and MFA alone is no longer enough.

New Risks Facing MFA

Many of us still remember when MFA was the impenetrable barrier. Your IT or security team pushed it as the last (and only) control you needed to keep accounts safe.

And while still essential, cybercriminals didn’t just roll over and quit. They adapted using multi-factor authentication bypass methods. After all, why target the mechanism when you can go after the layers around it?

MFA Fatigue Attacks

Imagine this: You’re sitting at the dinner table when suddenly, your phone lights up with dozens of MFA push notifications. You don’t know where they came from. Eventually, you become frustrated, confused, or tired enough to accidentally “Accept” one of them.

That’s an MFA fatigue attack. Threat actors bombard users with requests until one “slips past the goalie.”
And they’re more effective than you might realize. Microsoft conducted a study on its apps, documenting 382,000 MFA fatigue attacks in a single year. The worst part is how it leverages social engineering to prey on victims. One percent of users blindly accept the first push notification they receive. (imagine getting dozens at once)

Token Theft & Replay

This method bypasses the user altogether. After stealing credentials (typically via phishing), attackers intercept the authentication token, a digital key that proves a user is already logged in. They then “replay” this stolen token to impersonate the legitimate user and gain access.

These attacks make the MFA challenge obsolete. It’s almost as if it never occurred, because the system already sees a valid session in progress.

Session Hijacking

Here, attackers completely skip both the login and MFA prompts.

They’ll target active user sessions and hijack a session cookie, allowing them to take over an existing session.

So, for instance, let’s say you’re logged into your online banking service. The bank’s website issues a session cookie (your temporary “wristband”). The threat actor could view and steal that wristband through malware or an adversary-in-the-middle attack. From the site’s point of view, it only recognizes a valid session and allows them in without requiring a password or second factor.

Why Traditional MFA Alone Isn’t Enough

These techniques reveal a dangerous truth: Stand-alone MFA creates a vulnerability bubble and a false sense of security. In fact, 60% of phishing-related breaches use bypass techniques that MFA couldn’t stop. The most common? MFA fatigue attacks.

Here’s why MFA is beginning to fall short:

User Behavior as a Weak Link

Humans remain the most susceptible to errors. It’s why phishing and other social engineering tactics are so successful.

We’re also far less patient than we used to be. We like things quick and convenient. So, when we are bombarded with push notifications (as seen in MFA fatigue attacks), it’s easy to slip up and click “Accept.”

Ironically, developers designed MFA as a failsafe for our errors. But now? It’s made us more fragile.

Attacker Innovation Outpacing Static Controls

Even if you solve the user awareness issue, static defensive tools would still fall short due to attacker resilience. Threat actors are constantly innovating. They adapt tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) faster than companies can update their security controls.

One example of this is account takeover (ATO) attacks. Despite the massive adoption of MFA and all these efforts to curb ATO threats, they still increased by 24% last year.

MFA once looked impenetrable. However, it now leaves gaps that most experts didn’t consider at the time.

Detection & Prevention Techniques for MFA Bypass

The cure for MFA bypass is the same best practice for any cybersecurity program: proactiveness, layers of defense, and continuous visibility.

Risk-Based Authentication

Static MFA is too simple. If someone enters a username and password, the protocol gets triggered.

Risk-based authentication, however, adds more context. Where was the login location? Is the device new or commonly used? Does the login replicate a similar behavior by the user or an anomaly?

Suppose there were a login attempt from a foreign country on a dated, unmanaged device. In that case, you can set up policies to trigger a step-up authentication challenge or outright block the session, even with correct credentials.

Monitoring for Abnormal Access Patterns

Cyber threats typically stem from the abnormal. And visibility is key to monitoring anomalies.

Security teams must see all suspicious access patterns. Is someone rapidly reusing tokens from various IP addresses? Or logging in multiple times within minutes from two places that are not geographically close? Are logins outside of known business hours?

Identifying these trends helps prevent token theft and detect session hijacking.

Session Management & Revocation Controls

Reduce the attacker’s window of opportunity by enforcing short session and token lifetimes. (Bonus tip: Make them especially short for more sensitive applications)

You can also set session revocation policies. Therefore, if a password change or login originates from a random IP address, the session is automatically terminated.

And don’t forget to auto-refresh user tokens frequently. Even if a threat actor gains access through a stolen key, you can at least minimize the damage by preventing long-term system access.

How CyberMaxx Strengthens Identity Defense

Modern attacks demand more than tools. They require expertise, and CyberMaxx layers identity defense into a strong managed detection and response (MDR) service.

Static MFA won’t counter evolving tactics. But constant vigilance will.

Integrating Identity Signals into Threat Detection

Data powers everything CyberMaxx does. Our security analysts don’t view identities “in a vacuum.” We combine telemetry feeds and evaluate how authentication logs, access requests, and session data correlate.

We also use threat hunting research to track attack activity outside your network. This research allows us to better protect and detect.

These intelligence feeds transform identity signals into a powerful detection source, revealing attacks that other solutions miss.

Real-Time Response to Token Abuse

What’s the point of robust detection if you don’t take action?

When CyberMaxx identifies token theft or anomalous session activity, our MDR team is ready on the front lines.
We can rapidly isolate compromised accounts, revoke active sessions, and contain the threat before it leads to a full-scale breach.

Value for Clients

Threat actors aren’t getting complacent. And neither should your MDR provider.

Our adaptive security moves as fast as your attackers. We add layers that extend beyond static MFA to harden your environment against bypass techniques and enable rapid response if anything slips through.

Defending Beyond MFA

MFA isn’t obsolete but incomplete. While still vital for identity security, it’s just one piece. MDR expertise, continuous monitoring, and layered controls (like session management and auto-revocation) support adaptive defenses for token theft prevention and session hijacking detection.

It’s how CyberMaxx can stop modern identity attacks before they compromise your business.

The post Beyond MFA: Stopping Modern Identity Attacks appeared first on CyberMaxx.

NPM, the backbone of the modern JavaScript ecosystem, has suffered its most significant supply chain compromise to date. The scale is enormous, with more than 2.6 billion weekly downloads affected.

The breach began with the compromise of package maintainer Josh Junon’s accounts. Attackers bypassed protections by exploiting a 2FA reset email. Once inside, they published malicious updates to widely used NPM libraries. Junon confirmed the compromise publicly, sharing both the phishing email and screenshots of the takeover.

The attack was multi-layered. In addition to injecting malicious code into packages, the attackers also set up a credential-harvesting site. The domain they used for phishing also hosted a clone of the official npm[.]js site, designed to capture developer credentials directly.

The scope of impacted packages is unprecedented. Some of the most widely downloaded NPM modules were compromised, including:

• chalk (299.99m weekly downloads)
• debug (357.6m)
• ansi-styles (371.41m)
• supports-color (287.1m)
• strip-ansi (261.17m)
• color-convert (193.5m)
• ansi-regex (243.64m)
• color-name (191.71m)
• is-arrayish (73.8m)
• slice-ansi (59.8m)
• error-ex (47.17m)
• color-string (27.48m)
• simple-swizzle (26.26m)
• chalk-template (3.9m)
• backslash (0.26m)

These libraries sit at the base of countless dependency chains. The infection, therefore, cascades across millions of projects, even if developers never imported the compromised packages directly.

The fallout is immediate. Continuous integration pipelines around the world are now failing npm audits. Organizations are scrambling to identify if their builds pulled in the malicious versions. Given the ubiquity of packages like chalk and debug, it is likely that the compromise has reached into production environments at scale.

This incident highlights a persistent fragility in the open-source supply chain. Centralized ecosystems like NPM magnify both the benefits of reusable code and the risks of compromise. Developers have little visibility into transitive dependencies and often little recourse when upstream maintainers are targeted.

For now, security teams should audit their dependency trees, pin safe versions, and monitor NPM advisories closely. The situation is evolving, and further disclosures are likely as investigators untangle the breadth of the attack.

Further reading and ongoing coverage:
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45169794
• https://github.com/github/advisory-database/issues/6099

The post Largest NPM Supply Chain Attack Disrupts Billions of Downloads appeared first on CyberMaxx.

Below we’ve outlined nine activities that should be performed ahead of time to make sure you, your teams, and your organizations are prepared.

#1 Incident Response Plan Review

Review the IR SOP (incident response standard operating procedure) and ensure the details are correct and up to date. Identify who will be available and reachable during the holidays ahead of time, and rehearse before the time off. Do a test run, can everyone be contacted and join a bridge within your required timeframe? If not, plan around this now. An escalation tree is worthless if it cannot be executed correctly.

#2 Supply Chain Review

Review vendors whose products or services operate in your environment. This extends to both hardware and service offerings. Do they match your organization’s security standards? We have seen an increasing number of attacks that target service vendors year-on-year.

#3 Penetration Test

When was your last offensive engagement? Have you reviewed these findings and completed the recommended actions? Focus on architectural changes, minimizing the attack surface can provide more breathing space before coordinating a threat response.

#4 Network Assessment

• Can you answer the following questions:
• Do you have in-depth visibility into your network?
• What does your current inventory look like?
• Can you quarantine a threat quickly and reactively?
• Do you have EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)?
• Who can access your network? Do you have a BYOD (bring your own device) policy? If so, do you have NAC (network access controls) in place? What about mobile devices?
• Do you have failover in place in the event a critical asset is taken offline?

Attackers thrive in blind spots in your network. Be sure to include printers, VoIP, IoT devices, and cloud in this review.

#5 & #6 Vulnerability Assessment + Patch Management

This is a broad area, and requires the following to complete effectively:

• Visibility into your network
• Vulnerability Assessment of exposed assets

Where are you most vulnerable? What can you patch today? What are your most critical vulnerabilities? Are you up to date? There could be a potential chain of vulnerabilities that may lead to widespread impact.

Do you have public-facing assets, and if so – can you coordinate a patch of a 0day within 24 hours? If not, it shouldn’t be exposed. There are only two types of vulnerabilities; the ones you know about and the ones you don’t. We are operating on the attacker’s home ground here and they often have more information than the away team.

#7 Risk Assessment

Complete a risk assessment to answer the following questions:

• What are the current threats affecting you today – and leading up to the holiday season? This includes both internal and external threats.
• Who might be targeting your organization? Have they potentially targeted others in the same or similar industry vertical? Similar industries use similar software; making it easier for an attacker to rapidly target through multiple victims.
• Have you completed a vulnerability assessment? Is your patch management up to date?

#8 Awareness Training

Are the company staff aware of threats, and what to look for? Put another phishing assessment on the calendar if one hasn’t been completed in the past 90 days. How do your business partners make updates to accounting? Can it be impersonated? These are key training questions that should be reviewed regularly.

#9 Tabletop Exercise / Threat Simulation

With the above in mind, it’s time to put it all together. Create a tabletop (or work with your security vendor) to simulate a recent and relevant threat to your organization. Can the appropriate parties join a war room to respond to this threat without prior notice? How long does it take your security team to detect this threat? Simulate a response by quarantining the machine and performing threat eradication.

The goal is to work through PICERL (preparation, identification, containment, eradication, remediation, lessons learned) here, the tabletop is testing your preparedness ahead of an active incident.

Download the PDF below to share with your team

The post CISO Summer Checklist appeared first on CyberMaxx.

Shared by @PsExec64, the list uses a tiered system from S Tier to LOL.

Tier breakdown below:

· S Tier: The toughest EDRs to bypass, representing some level of resistance.

· A Tier: Strong performers that require effort to defeat.

· B Tier: Middling, attackers take them seriously but workarounds exist.

· C Tier: Weak enough to be dismissed in most serious attacks.

· D Tier: Almost irrelevant, relatively trivial obstacles.

· LOL Tier: Reserved for tools considered laughably ineffective in real-world breaches.

One surprise was the placement of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) in the LOL Tier, sparking discussion among security professionals. While MDE has solid detection capabilities when properly configured, it’s likely that Conti’s low rating reflects how frequently they encounter it in default or poorly secured deployments. Many organizations rely on MDE out of the box without enabling its advanced protections, making it far easier for threat actors to evade — and justifying the “LOL” label in Conti’s eyes.

Later, the group mentioned that they can bypass all EDRs listed – mentioning that some require more work than others.

The post created a lot of discussion in the comments, with various users pointing out benefits and flaws in various platforms.

The key takeaway here is that configuration matters just as much as product choice. Strong tools can become weak if left in their default state and not used to their full potential.

The post Conti Ransomware Gang Rank EDR Solutions Based on Ease of Evasion appeared first on CyberMaxx.

Understanding Polymorphic Threats

Polymorphic threats differ from traditional threats in several key ways. The main difference is in how they evolve and evade detection by security systems.

What Are Polymorphic Threats?

Traditional signature-based threats are static and unchanging. They rely on fixed patterns for detection. In contrast, polymorphic threats can continuously alter their code.

Why Polymorphism Challenges Automated Detection

Polymorphic threats’ features allow them to exploit the limitations of static signature-based detection, making it difficult for automated systems to identify them consistently.

As a result, polymorphic threats can typically evade traditional antivirus software and firewalls. This means they can infect systems for longer and cause more damage before they are detected.

The Limits of SOAR and Automated Detection

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) and other automated detection systems have limitations that often prevent them from identifying polymorphic threats.

How Automation Detects Threats

SOAR platforms and automated systems rely on standard methods, such as signature-based and behavior-based detection, to identify threats. These methods are effective at detecting known, static threats that display consistent and predictable patterns.

Why Polymorphic Threats Slip Through the Cracks

Automated systems are typically extremely effective at detecting known patterns. However, they often struggle with polymorphic threats, which lack consistent indicators or signatures. Polymorphic threats bypass organizational security systems and go undetected, staying in the organization’s system for longer and causing significant damage.

The Human Advantage: How SOC Teams Detect Polymorphic Threats

Security Operations Center (SOC) teams offer a human advantage when it comes to detecting threats. In particular, they can recognize patterns and context that automated systems can’t identify.

Pattern Recognition and Contextual Analysis

SOC analysts use their expertise to look beyond static indicators. That means they can identify threats based on unusual patterns and context within the network.

For instance, SOC security teams monitor networks for unexpected activities, such as unexplained traffic spikes. They can also identify anomalies, such as logins from unknown locations. In addition, SOC analysts take the broader context of the threat into account. This can include the time of day, the location, or the specific users involved.

Combining insights from multiple sources, such as logs and network monitoring tools, provides analysts with a holistic overview of potential threats. This allows them to get to the root cause more quickly.

Adaptive Response to Emerging Threat Tactics

Experienced SOC teams can quickly adjust their approach based on the latest threat intelligence, allowing them to adapt rapidly to new tactics used by threat actors.

The CyberMaxx Approach: Combining Automation with SOC Expertise

Rather than viewing it as SOC vs. SOAR, organizations can benefit most from using both approaches together. CyberMaxx combines the power of automated SOAR technology with an experienced SOC team, offering a comprehensive approach to threat detection.

SOC Analysts as the Last Line of Defense

CyberMaxx blends technology with human expertise to increase efficiency and improve threat detection. By using SOAR to automate routine tasks, SOC analysts are free to focus on more complex threats.

CyberMaxx’s SOC team provides critical insights and acts as organizations’ last line of defense. Human SOC analysts can investigate alerts flagged by SOAR more closely and manually check for signs of polymorphic activity. This helps them identify emerging trends while maintaining security within the organization.

Why CyberMaxx’s SOC Team is Essential for Advanced Threat Detection

Human expertise is essential for detecting and responding to polymorphic threats. CyberMaxx’s SOC team offers specialized support that organizations can benefit significantly from.

Providing Peace of Mind in an Evolving Threat Landscape

CyberMaxx’s combined approach ensures clients receive adaptive and resilient protection. Its integration of SOAR and SOC capabilities allows organizations to continuously monitor significant amounts of data in real time. Its experts can respond to threats quickly and effectively. This prevents threats from spiraling and offers peace of mind for your organization.

Staying Ahead of Threat Actors

With CyberMaxx, clients are protected against both known and emerging threats, thanks to the continuous innovation of its SOC team.

CyberMaxx’s SOAR technology automates repetitive tasks to deal with low-level threats quickly and effectively. Whenever a suspected security compromise is detected, its zero-latency response model is activated. This reduces the time between detection and containment. As soon as an issue is detected, SOC analysts can jump in and act to eradicate complex threats before they cause harm.

Addressing Polymorphic Threats with the CyberMaxx SOC Team

CyberMaxx combines SOC expertise with automation to deliver the most effective protection against polymorphic threats. That ensures your organization remains secure and resilient.

The post Beyond the Algorithm: How SOC Teams Spot Polymorphic Threats Automation Can’t Detect appeared first on CyberMaxx.

Understanding the Basics: What Are Honeypots in Cybersecurity?

Traditional honeypots are frequently used to gather threat intelligence. They allow security teams to lure cyber attackers into exploiting a vulnerability and delivering an attack, providing insights into the methods and tactics used. Here’s how:

The Role of Traditional Honeypots

Honeypots are decoys. Their systems are intentionally sent out to provide information on a vulnerability or attack opportunity. The goal: Attract adversaries to exploit that vulnerability and monitor tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

For example, let’s say a financial services business found a rise in attacks targeting online banking apps / self-service portals. A security team, hoping to understand potential methods and beef up security accordingly, could set up a fake banking site. It could be intentionally weak in security and appealing to cybercriminals. From there, the team can advertise the honeypot on various dark web forums and monitor TTPs.

How Honeypots Aid in Threat Detection

Imagine you can see precisely how a cyber attack will get carried out. Wouldn’t that be pretty useful for preparing defenses? Well, that’s what a honeypot does. By sending one out and letting attackers come to you (in a secure, irrelevant environment), you can collect data on TTPs and attack indicators.

Analyzing interactions with these decoy systems lets you gather intel. With that intel, your threat detection systems know exactly what to look for while monitoring user behaviors, system changes, network processes, etc. And because honeypots replicate real systems, you get far more accurate TTP insights that you can apply to your security defenses.

Enter the Malicious Honeypot: A Threat Actor’s New Tool

Honeypots have traditionally been used by the “good guys.” That is, until recently. Per our report on malicious honeypots, threat actors have adapted the technology for their own gain.

What Is a Malicious Honeypot?

A malicious honeypot does the opposite of a traditional one. Rather than a deceptive trap set by security teams for cybercriminals, the “bad guys” set these traps to mislead security teams. These honeypots feed false (or misleading) data to security teams and ultimately pollute internet scanner results.

How Malicious Honeypots Disrupt Security Efforts

Malicious honeypots, fully owned and controlled by threat actors, send security operations in the wrong direction. It lures unsuspecting threat intelligence teams into false assumptions about an attacker’s TTPs and possible motives. So if you’re chasing a threat that either doesn’t exist or isn’t as prominent as you thought, you’ll find yourself on a “wild goose chase.”

For example, you might waste resources on unnecessary controls or delay investigating an anomaly because you didn’t think it was relevant.

The other challenge is when threat actors exploit honeypots to covertly carry out malicious operations. An attacker might identify and use IP addresses that are known as honeypots and, therefore, ignored by most security teams. Meanwhile, they can repurpose these into command and control (C2) servers. Because they’re masked as benign honeypots, attackers can operate undetected within the network.

The Impact of Malicious Honeypots on Cybersecurity

While they don’t directly harm your network, malicious honeypots can drastically impact data reliability and incident response from misrepresented threat insights:

Polluting Threat Intelligence

Having data on your attackers lets you prepare for what they might throw at you. But what if that data is skewed or inaccurate? Malicious honeypots can drastically misguide security teams. For example, if you were scanning the internet for information on known vulnerabilities, honeypots would cause your scanners to flag non-existent vulnerabilities or inflated numbers on potential threats.

Similarly, if you were documenting interactions with attackers to spot TTPs, they may intentionally share data that misrepresents how they deliver attacks and which tools are used. These false reports could send you in the wrong direction while threat profiling or when crafting a cybersecurity strategy.

Wasting Resources From Bad Threat Intelligence

The latter challenge that comes with polluted threat intelligence is how you allocate resources after the fact.

Imagine you’re scanning the web to identify TTPs your company should be most concerned about. Unaware of malicious honeypots, your threat intelligence came in that the biggest concern to your industry was a list of particular malware signatures. Therefore, you spend tons of money upgrading antivirus solutions and enhancing intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDPS) to account for these signatures.

Little did you know that man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks are actually the most prevalent. But rather than invest in stronger encryption and robust network security protocols that could mitigate MitM risks, you spent most of the budget on defending against threats that were not as crucial to your business.

How CyberMaxx Mitigates the Risks of Malicious Honeypots

CyberMaxx is on the case! Through our resilient threat intelligence and research teams, we’re able to identify and neutralize the impact of malicious honeypots — demonstrating our proactive approach to emerging cyber threats.

Advanced Threat Filtering Techniques

When our threat research team scans the web for attack data and methods, we don’t just assume every data point is valid. We use filtering tools to spot and disregard any data originating from known malicious honeypots. This prevents us from misrepresenting threats or TTPs from inflated (or deflated) data.

It ultimately lets us improve our detection systems by only focusing on legitimate vulnerability and threat insights.

Enhanced Threat Intelligence Validation

To further our commitment to accurate threat intelligence, we ensure only legitimate honeypots (used by actual security teams) are used for insights. When a honeypot is detected, our team manually investigates whether it’s for research purposes or acting maliciously. If it’s determined to be a “good” honeypot, we’ll include it in our models.

These techniques further reduce the risk of malicious honeypots influencing cybersecurity decisions.

The Future of Honeypots and Deception in Cybersecurity

Threat actors thrive on deception. And we don’t expect them to stop innovating and adapting their methods anytime soon. But CyberMaxx is committed to staying prepared for the challenges malicious honeypots present.

The Need for Continued Innovation in Deception Tactics

While ordinarily used to sharpen cyber defenses, cybercriminals have exploited honeypots for their malicious intent. It’s what makes staying ahead of these threats so vital. And it all starts with advancing detection technology.

By keeping up with emerging trends and nuanced tactics via honeypots, we can out-innovate and outmaneuver adversaries.

CyberMaxx’s Commitment to Adaptive Defense

We serve clients on the motto: “Think like an Adversary. Defend like a Guardian.” With that comes a commitment to staying proactive against evolving threats by understanding how they operate.

And ensuring reliable threat intelligence through adaptive security practices and continuous monitoring is how we’ll prevent malicious honeypots from impacting your security posture.

Defense Against the New Wave of Cyber Deception Tactics

Malicious honeypots may be more prominent, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stay vigilant. CyberMaxx is taking a proactive stance against these deceptive tactics through its advanced threat data filtering and validation. The result: Our clients always have access to trustworthy threat intelligence at their fingertips.

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Understanding the Scope of Insider Threats

With the rise of remote and hybrid work, human risk mitigation has become even more challenging. Insider threats can come in the form of accidental breaches or intentional malicious actions. Accidental breaches often result from negligence, inadequate training, or third-party partners. Malicious insiders are those seeking to harm the organization for personal gain or corporate sabotage.

Over 70% of CISOs identify human error as the top cybersecurity vulnerability. Insider threats now cost businesses an average of $11.5 million annually. Beyond monetary losses, organizations can also suffer damage to their reputation and lose trust with customers.

Key Strategies for Mitigating Human Risk

A successful approach to reducing human risk combines employee training with advanced technological solutions, forming a robust dual defense.

Employee Training and Security Awareness

Educating employees on cybersecurity helps them recognize common threats such as phishing, malware, or spoofing. An effective security training program should offer:

• Role-specific content
• Interactive learning through simulations, scenarios, or gamification
• Regular updates on best practices and new threats
• Assessment to measure understanding and identify areas for improvement

Ongoing training reinforces security protocols and prepares your team to respond to cyber threats.

Strengthening Passwords and Access Controls

Weak passwords account for an estimated 81% of data breaches. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) strengthens defenses by ensuring that even if a password is compromised, preventing unauthorized access is still possible.

The principle of least privilege (PoLP) limits access to role-specific resources, minimizing insider threat risks. Role-based access control (RBAC) further enhances security by managing access based on job responsibilities, not individuals. Regularly reviewing access permissions and monitoring user activity also helps minimize human error.

Leveraging Technology to Reduce Human Error

AI and machine learning detect patterns that indicate potential threats. Immediate responses block suspicious activity, isolate compromised systems, and alert security teams to potential breaches.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) monitor your IT infrastructure to identify unusual behaviors and detect potential threats in real-time. These tools establish behavioral baselines, enabling early detection of breaches and minimizing damage.

Software that can detect unusual behavior patterns include:

• Cisco Stealthwatch
• Flowmon NBAD
• IBM QRadar Network Insights
• Anodot
• And more!

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) is another powerful approach. It involves continuously monitoring systems to spot vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

Implementing Robust Insider Threat Prevention Policies

While technology is essential for defending against insider threats, formalized policies and procedures are equally critical. Strong defenses require more than just advanced tools—they need clear, enforceable guidelines that govern employee behavior and reduce risk.

Developing Clear Security Policies

• Establish internal guidelines: Define policies for proper data handling, access control, and user permissions.
• Clarify access permissions: Specify who can access particular information, the circumstances, and necessary security measures.
• Communicate expectations clearly:
  • Use straightforward language.
  • Provide regular training.
  • Ensure all employees can easily access policies.

A key way to enforce cybersecurity policies is to educate employees on their importance and proper implementation. Provide regular and updated cybersecurity awareness sessions and online courses. You should also test employees’ knowledge with quizzes, simulations, and feedback.

Conducting Regular Security Audits

Audits identify weaknesses and reveal potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited, so conducting them regularly is important. Specifically, audits can expose human risk factors such as poor password management, improper data handling, or lacking security policy adherence. System weaknesses, like outdated software, can also be uncovered. Eliminating these factors allows organizations to address weaknesses before they are exploited proactively.

The objectivity of third-party assessments strengthens the security process. External auditors provide an unbiased evaluation of a company’s cybersecurity measures. This ensures that all areas of risk are thoroughly examined, creating more effective security strategies.

The Role of Leadership in Risk Mitigation

Leadership involvement is critical in reducing human risk. C-suite executives and department heads play a pivotal role in building a security-first culture.

Building a Culture of Security from the Top Down

When leadership visibly prioritizes cybersecurity by modeling best practices like using strong passwords and adhering to security protocols, it sends a clear message. It shows employees that cybersecurity is a priority. Senior management buy-in is crucial to enforce security policies, signaling they are essential, not optional, for protecting the business.

Supporting Employee Accountability

Employees must feel empowered and accountable for their role in cybersecurity. Leadership can foster responsibility through regular training, open communication, and real-time security updates.

Promoting a safe environment for employees to report unusual activities without fear of consequences is essential. When employees can flag threats without fear of repercussions, they become more proactive in safeguarding the company. This collective accountability helps to strengthen overall security and fosters a collaborative approach to preventing breaches.

Human Risk Mitigation: Securing Your Organization’s Future

Effective human risk mitigation requires a blend of training, technology, and leadership. Proactively addressing insider threats keeps businesses one step ahead in safeguarding their future.

The post Human Risk Mitigation: Protecting Your Business From Insider Threats appeared first on CyberMaxx.

On July 19, 2024, the world had a global IT outage that impacted many different sectors, including 911 services, airlines, healthcare, and other key services. This outage was caused by an error in a driver in the CrowdStrike platform and impacted Microsoft Windows operating systems. At the time of this writing some of the effects are still being felt; however, we should note many IT teams had an impressive response to this large outage.

Monocropping

One of the things we should examine from this event is our reliance on “monocropping” of the IT infrastructure of the globe. What is monocropping? Monocropping is the phenomenon in modern agriculture of planting large swaths of a single crop in the field with no genetic or species diversity. Typically, in modern agriculture these are corn, soy, and wheat. This results in the use of massive amounts of pesticides and synthetic fertilizer on our fields and food. The pesticides are needed as the predator/prey balance is disrupted and things such as grasshoppers, snails, locusts, or aphids can run amok in the crop. It is a downward spiral as the pesticides also kill any of the beneficial predators, which generally exist in lower numbers than the prey.

Why is that relevant to cyber security, specifically in this case?

We can learn a great deal from the natural world. Nature has stress tested systems for millions of years, and all we must do is observe. In a more natural or regenerative agriculture vision, we should have strips of diverse crops interposed with natural elements. This limits the uncontrolled spread of pests and gives us a more healthy and diverse food supply.

Currently, IT is a monocropped field of a few technologies. We will explore that below.

The thesis presented as we examine some of the admittedly early fallout of this event is “Are we too dependent on a few systems?” Do we have too much corn, soy, and wheat in our IT environment, leaving us vulnerable to infestation of pests or extreme risk of failure? I think the events of the last few days speak for themselves.

So, what is the technology-based monocropping we are seeing? Windows controls approximately 72% of the share of global computing, and CrowdStrike makes up approximately 15%. Windows owns Defender Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) accounts for another 40%. Two platforms (operating system and EDR) account for the vast majority of platforms.

How about cloud? We have seen rapid consolidation in cloud platforms that are now mission critical to everyday life and business operations.

We have an underappreciated risk in microservices architecture. Microservices are small segments of code that run in other applications. One of the problems of this scheme is that in many cases, these services are not redundant but are utilized in many critical areas. Also, there is a large non-human identity problem, where the API keys and login credentials are very complex to understand and map. This makes security monitoring difficult and the complexity results in an infeasible analytic scenario.

Natural Systems, Patterns and IT

As I have written about before, I think we have a lot to learn about how natural systems can show us ideas and patterns for IT. In this case, we have a strong example. Some of the detrimental impacts of monocropping map to cyber abstractly and some don’t. Let’s examine how this looks.

Relying on a monoculture commodity leaves a farmer vulnerable to pest infestation or crop failure, as the lack of diversity tends to disadvantage beneficial predators and advantage the pests. This leads to the use of pesticides to control pests, which arguably has health impacts for humans. The analog to cyber is that a single operating system leaves us vulnerable to massive attacks by adversaries who can find a vulnerability in that operating system. By removing competition among security vendors, we are killing off the beneficial predators who hunt the pests, again leaving us vulnerable. The tradeoff between monoculture systems and the redundancy of a polyculture in IT is offset by the increased attack surface and training impact in tool-diverse environments.

Clearly, this isn’t an easy problem to solve, but let’s examine some ways to possibly mitigate.

Options for Mitigation

First, let’s state upfront that there are no easy answers here. One of the items that complicate this is the licensing costs, both from an existing capital expenditure (CAPEX) or future licensing of multiple products. The incentives are not aligned with diversifying our infrastructure. There is another compounding issue that comes up. How can we train and equip our staff to handle a diverse EDR or operating system deployment? This could work against our goals and would be a very valid criticism of this scheme.

One way we could limit the risk to our monoculture of infrastructure is to give 20% to diversifying our mission critical units. Much as regenerative agriculture can build in strips of wildflowers or tree-lined buffers in riparian areas to attract beneficial predators or fungal soil improvement, we can diversify our EDR/operating system base. By bringing in this 20% diversity, we build in some natural defenses to our monoculture IT infrastructure to ensure we can operate in an event like July 19th.

Finally, we should examine our cloud convergence. Much as we have seen in our EDR and operating system convergence, we may have similar risks. There is a great reliance on the Microsoft cloud tech stack for much of our modern business communication and Identity and Access Management (IAM). We are tied in via email, Teams, Entra ID, and so forth. Diversifying our selections here could help with a large outage at one of the cloud providers. Others are heavily tied into Amazon Web Service (AWS). While the business case for AWS makes sense, the risk model doesn’t necessarily work out as well. Yes, we can gain regional Disaster Recovery (DR) and the ability to auto scale and swap hardware; however, we are tied to a single provider and one outage there could be catastrophic.

The natural world can teach us a great deal about recent cyber events. We should look to emulate these natural systems and diversify our core infrastructure. There could be great benefit, with some risk, to moving our core systems out of a monoculture system to a more diverse, and I would argue, healthier, ecosystem.

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