Remote work has some challenges, one of which is performing access management. But do you know the real importance of managing access even with remote work?

Check it now and understand why it is important to manage access even when working remotely and be prepared to ensure your company’s security.

How Important Is Access Management?

Understanding the importance of managing all accesses made in remote activities is essential for a company to pay close attention and work with caution and efficiency.

Therefore, access management becomes important, as it will be able to control and protect the use of all high-privilege and generic credentials.

Also, the proper management of access provides full traceability of use, in addition to the segregation of accesses carried out in the infrastructure. So, it is not because an employee is accessing something away from the company’s premises that access management does not need to be done, it is the very opposite, as the rates of virtual attacks are large and growing.

Thus, when there is a habit of managing all access and guaranteeing the aforementioned tools, the chances of attacks drop, making the practice even more important, relevant, and indispensable.

See How It Works

To understand a little more and learn how management works, it is important to understand the core mechanism. First, it is possible to segregate access, for example, allowing groups of users with administrative powers to be created. Administrator user groups gain permission to obtain physical access passwords.

Moreover, it is also possible to select the group of users who will receive remote access passwords for a target system or device to be used.

In this way, the group receiving the remote access password can follow workflows with reasons and approvals provided by the requesting user, just as much as the physical user group.

What Are the Benefits of Access Management?

Once you understand a little more about the importance and how management is covered in this article, knowing the benefits is also relevant to understanding the value of the whole.

Therefore, one of the main benefits is the operational gain that exists in the access control process performed in the infrastructure. This is a high-impact benefit that saves management time.

In addition, another benefit is the management of credential passwords, allowing the delivery of passwords in a controlled and secure manner, preventing interceptions and the password of employees working remotely from ending up in the possession of unauthorized third parties, which may cause a serious failure in the system’s security.

Furthermore, another benefit of managing remote work access is the fact that the authentication of the target system is done with transparency, as well as the authentication on the network device.

In addition to transparency, authentication also has the advantage that the password is displayed to third parties or network administrators, further increasing security with management.

Is your company prepared for a cyberattack? See all about it in this article and find out!

Knowing what to do to prevent Social Engineering attacks is essential to ensuring internet security.

After all, cybersecurity is all about knowing who and what to trust when it comes to protecting your digital information.

Here is everything you need to know about what to do to avoid Social Engineering attacks.

What Social Engineering Is

Even the strongest security systems are vulnerable when people accessing those systems are tricked into providing sensitive information such as login credentials or account details.

Cybercriminals often use human psychology and the art of manipulation to scare, confuse, or rush you into opening a malicious link or attachment, or providing personal information through a process known as “social engineering.”

That is why it is so important not to ignore the 7 Signs Your Business Needs to Improve the Security of Sensitive Data.

How Do Social Engineering Attacks Work?

Social engineering tactics exploit our basic human need to respond to urgent requests (especially those from a person in authority), to make a problem go away, or simply to be useful to trick us into providing information that can be used to commit financial fraud.

Major events such as public health emergencies (eg Covid-19), natural disasters and high-profile elections, or even common occurrences like tax and holiday seasons, present ideal opportunities for fraudsters to take advantage of our anxiety and curiosity.

Criminals also often try to scare us and threaten the consequences if we do not respond.

How to Identify Social Engineering Attacks

There are basically three ways to identify such techniques before we know how to prevent Social Engineering attacks:

Fear as a Driver

Sending threatening or intimidating emails, calls, and texts that appear to come from an authority such as a police officer, the tax department or a bank are techniques that social engineers use to scare you into action, according to their demands for personal information or money.

Urgent Requests

Suspicious emails or texts, which include urgent requests for personal information, are a big warning sign that someone is trying to deceive you.

Irresistible Opportunities

If you are offered free access to an application, game, or program in exchange for login credentials, beware! You should never share your login credentials with anyone.

Also remember that free software or applications often contain malicious code, especially when it comes in the form of unsolicited online offers.

Other common scams include offering to split a lottery prize or information about a profitable employment opportunity.

Cybersecurity has become one of the significant threats in the healthcare industry. As a whole, IT professionals must continually address health data security issues due to specifications outlined in regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), as well as an ethical commitment to helping patients and harm that health security violations can have on their lives.

Electronic health records, also called electronic medical records, contain a wealth of confidential information on patients’ medical backgrounds, making the security of the hospital’s network a primary IT concern. 

Electronic medical records enable doctors and other healthcare professionals, as well as insurers, to share essential information. This makes it easier to coordinate care and ease insurance issues. Never before have physicians been able to collaborate so dynamically to meet patients’ needs.

While this may sound simple, health data security presents many challenges common to IT and unique to hospital cybersecurity. Keep reading the article and learn more about the 5 biggest cyber threats for healthcare organizations.

Why Are Health Information Systems a Target for Security Threats?

The paradox of shared health information is that it simultaneously makes patients safer and puts them at risk. The larger the network becomes, the more useful it is in providing high-quality healthcare, but their data also becomes more attractive to criminals.

Cyber threats in healthcare are a big problem for a few reasons, such as:

• In addition to patient records, medical service provider networks can contain valuable financial information.
• Since there are very few people who do not consult their healthcare providers, almost everyone’s personal information is available in some form.
• The interconnected nature of electronic medical records means that hackers have access to patient data collected for years. Sharing patient information is essential to providing the best possible care, but it also makes target networks extremely valuable.

In other situations, health organizations face more direct attacks. Once a hacker has access to a network, they can install ransomware to encrypt files or block essential services until the organization pays a specific ransom. 

Healthcare is such a sensitive field that organizations often have little choice but to pay the ransom and hope that the money can somehow be recovered.

In medical situations, where a tiny little change in dosage is the difference between life and death for a patient, health professionals cannot allow these threats to materialize.

Password strength is one of the criteria considered when creating password policies. After all, this is one of the most efficient measures to prevent passwords from being breached. And worrying about this is of paramount importance for organizations today.

This is because the use of weak passwords is one of the major reasons for data leaks in Brazil, and many Brazilians still opt for passwords that are easy to discover, such as the sequence 123456, the password word itself, family and football team names.

With that in mind, we have broken down the subject in this article, explaining more details about password strength and its importance for information security. To facilitate your understanding, we divided our text into the following topics:

• How Important is the Strength of a Password?
• Five Steps to Create a Strong Password
• Periodic Password Changes: Are or Are They Not Important to Ensure Security?
• Two Tips for Memorizing Passwords
• Use Two-Step Verification or Multifactor Authentication to Protect Credentials Are Password Strength Meters Reliable?

How Important is the Strength of a Password?

A strong password has the function of preventing your accounts from being hacked by malicious actors, as a weak password can easily be guessed by a malicious user, exposing you to data theft and extortion.

If you are at the head of an organization, you have the aggravating factor of losing data from customers, partners, suppliers, and employees, which can bring great financial damage and damage to the credibility of your company.

What’s more, with the constant evolution of technology, it is not enough to just worry about human hackers. Today, there is software capable of evaluating the behavior of users, in order to guess the chosen password.

Some programs even perform combinations of words found in dictionaries and imitate patterns based on easy-to-memorize passwords, harming password strength. 

We also point out that personal information exposed on social media, such as birthdays and names, also works against you and in favor of those who want to discover your passwords.

Five Steps to Create a Strong Password

Now that you know the importance of password strength, here’s what you should do to create a strong password and ensure its security:

• Opt for long passwords: Short ones are easier to identify, so we recommend you set a password of at least 12 characters, however, we advise that the ideal is to use 14 digits or more;
• Create a complex combination: One of the ways to ensure password strength is to gather numbers, upper and lower case letters, and symbols to make it difficult for cyberattackers;
• Do not choose words that can be found in dictionaries, proper names, product or company names;
• Do not reuse previously used passwords;
• Words written backward are not an adequate solution to guarantee password complexity;
• Think of a password you are able to memorize, even if it is difficult for others to guess.

Periodic Password Changes: Are or Are They Not Important to Ensure Security?

Periodic password change is a widely recommended measure to ensure password strength, but it has been the subject of some debate. Microsoft, for example, which used to recommend changing them every 60 days, started to consider this method useless and dangerous.

That’s because people tend to create their passwords based on easy-to-identify references, as explained above, and when they change their passwords, they make minimal changes to the words or numbers used. That is, if the hacker knows the victims’ current password, they will have many chances to discover the new code.

In addition, the malicious actor can use passwords already leaked in other security incidents to reuse them in other services. This practice is called credential stuffing, or password reuse.

Do you want to find out if your password has been breached to know if you need to replace it? senhasegura Hunter is the ideal service for you. It indicates leaked credentials and what data has been compromised. You can even make a free consultation by clicking here, with the assurance your email will be used exclusively for this purpose. 

Two Tips for Memorizing Passwords

To ensure password strength, you will have to create complex and unique passwords. Therefore, you may have difficulty remembering which numbers, letters, and symbols were chosen for each one. Therefore, we prepared some tips for you to memorize these characters. Check it out:

Use a Password Manager

We know remembering all passwords can be a burden for users. Therefore, we recommend using a password manager that allows you to store them, as well as suggest and create strong passwords. But remember you will need to remember at least one access, from the manager itself, and this must be difficult to identify, otherwise, the program could be violated and expose the other passwords.

senhasegura is one of the solutions that can be used for the proper storage and management of passwords in your company.

Create a Rule to Make Memorization Easier

You know you must use a unique password for each platform or service you access, but you can follow a single logic to create all your passwords. 

Another tip is to think of a phrase and shorten it to take advantage of its initials to create a password that is not obvious. However, do not forget the need to mix uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols in order to ensure password strength.

By following these tips, you are more likely to memorize your accesses, even if they are complex codes. 

Use Two-Step Verification or Multifactor Authentication to Protect Credentials

When it comes to protecting your credentials, you should not limit yourself to criteria that guarantee password strength. Some features can be very efficient to ensure your cybersecurity.

One of them is two-step verification, also known as two-factor authentication (2FA). This is a mechanism that requires a second piece of data to give access to accounts, commonly in the form of codes sent by SMS or even an application token.

However, we recommend you do not use text messages, as your mobile number can also be hacked. To generate codes through a token, it is possible to use authentication applications, such as:

• Authy;
• Google Authenticator; and
• Microsoft Authenticator.

Multifactor authentication (MFA) consists of a tool that uses at least two mechanisms to authorize access to online systems, inhibiting the action of criminals. The methods used are knowledge factors (passwords and codes), possession factors (tokens), and inheritance factors (such as fingerprint and facial recognition).

Are Password Strength Meters Reliable?

When you create a password and enter it on a platform, it can be classified by the password strength meter as weak or strong, receive a score, or even be associated with the colors green, yellow, and red. With this information, you have the opportunity to rethink your chosen password and adopt a more complex code.

However, it is very common for people to question the efficiency of these password strength meters, which use algorithms to tell you if the password is strong in a situation of brute force attacks. The most problematic thing is that this type of attack is already old and today there are even dictionaries with lists of the most used passwords and patterns.

One exception to the rule is zxcvbn, which includes these patterns in its analysis and, according to experts, is the best choice when it comes to a password strength meter. It is not an infallible technology, but it is certainly ahead of the rest. 

Another feature you can use to ensure password complexity is a password generator. This tool makes it possible to create different combinations of characters automatically and randomly, making it difficult for intruders to work. 

Reading this article, you had the opportunity to:

• Learn more about the importance of password strength, one of the main recommendations when creating password policies, as it is a powerful action against intrusion attempts by malicious agents;
• Get precious recommendations for creating strong passwords (use of long combinations of at least 12 characters; in a complex way, gathering numbers, upper and lower case letters, and symbols; without words that can be found in dictionaries, proper names, product, or company names, etc);
• Learn about practical tips to memorize your passwords more easily, as in the case of using access managers;
• Understand about other effective ways of protecting credentials, such as two-factor authentication (2FA) and multifactor authentication (MFA);
• Know whether or not password strength meters are reliable.

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With the coronavirus pandemic, companies had to adapt and reframe their businesses, which brought many benefits in terms of growth and digital presence. Home office and hybrid jobs are already a reality for most companies, especially technology ones; physical servers are being moved to cloud environments; and companies had to change the way they present themselves in the market and relate to clients, using large volumes of data combined with tools and Artificial Intelligence as the main resources to improve business strategies and increase sales.

These positive changes in the digital transformation, in turn, have created an almost complete reliance on technology, increasing companies’ exposure to vulnerabilities and cyberattacks such as cloud server hacks, leaks, and data hijacking. The current context forces organizations to go through this transformation process, without which it is impossible to evolve. 

Therefore, all business leaders must be aware of the dangers they are exposing their business to and are prepared to protect themselves and deal with these risky situations as assertively as possible. From the users’ point of view, it is important to pay attention to the protection of their own data and put aside some habits of insecure behavior in the virtual environment.

Check out the main effects of the pandemic on Information Security, according to research released by IBM Security and Kaspersky data.

Increased Attacks in Cloud Environment

Due to the pandemic, many companies are moving to the cloud environment, which increases the flow of data and, consequently, the risk of threats and attacks. Work previously performed on a machine under the supervision of the company’s IT staff is now performed on a machine handed over to the user, with little or no control by the information security team. 

The companies’ IT infrastructures are also freed up for remote access on the employees’ own machines. All these factors increase the chances of attacks.

Another concern, according to IBM, is the fact that Linux is the main responsible for workloads in the cloud (about 90%) and a good part of malware attacks are related to this operating system, which only tends to increase the attacks in cloud environments that use these virtual machines. 

Cybercriminals Are Impersonating Famous Brands in Online Shopping

It is no surprise that the pandemic has generated an increase in online purchases. As a result, cyberattacks have also become more frequent, and the lack of information from many consumers on how to shop safely online is also a fertile ground for this. 

According to an IBM report, cybercriminals are posing as consumer-trusted brands more often. Adidas was one of the brands that drew the most attention from the attacks, due to the high demand from consumers for coveted products. 

The launch of a brand model in 2020 may have increased this wave of attacks. Users were directed to pages identical to the original ones and, when making payments, cyber criminals tried to steal financial information, passwords, personal information, and even break into the victim’s devices.

Ransomware Attacks Were the Biggest Since 2019

A ransomware attack takes place through malicious software that blocks access or encrypts the data on the system, network, or computer of companies and/or users. Generally, cyber criminals ask for millions of dollars, mainly from prominent companies and people, in exchange for returning these accesses.

Social distancing and the practice of home office during the pandemic have intensified ransomware attacks around the world. “People stayed at home and had time to explore vulnerabilities in systems and critical infrastructure,” explains Apostolos Malatras, leader of the knowledge and information team at ENISA (European Agency for Network and Information Security). 

According to numerous recent research, this category of scam is becoming increasingly popular, particularly on corporate networks, as they can offer higher amounts in exchange for regaining access to data.

In Brazil alone, there was a 350% increase in this type of attack, just in the first quarter of 2020, according to data from Kaspersky. Also according to these data, the country leads the ranking of the largest number of companies attacked by this type of threat during the pandemic. 

Ransom figures have increased a lot and created a very profitable business for criminals. According to Fabio Assolini, an expert at Kaspersky, in addition to a greater guarantee of profit from attacks on organizations, this increase was also due to the recent drop in the price of Bitcoin, the main digital currency used by hackers. 

According to the expert, “Criminals know that companies and individuals are more vulnerable and accessing corporate networks from potentially unprotected devices. This increases the risk”.

SQL Injection is one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities for websites and online applications. It occurs when a user adds untrusted data to a database query, for example, when filling out a web form. 

If data injection is enabled, attackers can create user input to steal valuable data, bypass authentication, or corrupt records in your database.

 There are different types of SQL injection attacks, but in general, they all have a similar cause. Untrusted data that the user enters is concatenated with the query string. 

Therefore, user input can change the original intent of the query and lead to numerous security issues. 

In this article, we cover and recommend some best practices for technicians to use in preventing SQL Injection attacks. Keep reading and understand more about these practices! 

Do Not Rely on Client-side Input Validation

Client-side input validation is an excellent practice to prevent SQL Injection attacks. With client-side input validation, you can now prevent invalid information from being sent to your system logic. However, this only works for users who have no bad intentions and want to use the system as designed. 

Providing the user with direct feedback that a certain value is not valid is very useful and simple. Therefore, you should use client-side validation to help your user experience. 

When looking at SQL injection, this is not a method you should trust. You can remove client-side validation by changing some Javascript code loaded in your browser. 

Also, it is very easy to make a basic HTTP call to the backend in a client-server architecture with a parameter that causes an SQL injection. Maybe using tools the old-school curl commands.

You should validate the server-side, preferably as close to the source as possible. In this case, you create the SQL query. Anything a client sends you should be considered potentially harmful. So, in this case, relying on client-side validation for SQL injection is a terrible idea.

Use Database Engines With Restricted Privileges

When creating a database user for your application, you should think about this user’s privileges.

Does the application need to be able to read, write and update all databases? How about truncating or dropping tables? If you limit your application’s privileges on the database, you can minimize the impact of SQL injection. 

It is advisable not to have a single database user for your application, but to create multiple database users and connect them to specific application roles with different privileges. Security issues are likely a ripple effect, so you should be aware of all relationships to avoid heavy damage.

Use Ready-made Instructions and Query Parameterization

Many languages have built-in features available that help prevent SQL injection. When writing SQL queries, you can use something like a ready-made statement to compile the query. 

With a ready-made statement, we can perform query parameterization, which is a technique to dynamically create SQL statements. You create the base query with some placeholders and securely attach user-supplied parameters to those placeholders.

When using a real ready-made statement and parameterized queries, the database itself actually takes care of the escape. First, it builds the query execution plan based on the query string with placeholders. 

In the second step, the (untrusted) parameters are sent to the database. The query plan is already created, so the parameters no longer influence this. This avoids the injection completely.

Ransomware attacks are one of the biggest fears of companies today. Imagine having to use your business resources to pay cybercriminals. This is a reality that happens.

However, in case your company suffers a ransomware attack, what is the best option: To pay or not to pay the ransom? That is exactly what we will talk about in this article.

Keep reading and understand how to handle this type of situation.

What is a Ransomware Attack?

A ransomware attack consists of blocking data from computers and servers through encryption.

The hacker blocks this data and demands the payment of the ransom through a type of digital currency, such as Bitcoin.

The promise made is that the data will only be released when the ransom is paid.

How Does a Ransomware Attack Work?

One of the biggest risks to a company’s information security is cyberattacks, as hackers are aware of possible system security flaws due to data transfer between the various devices connected to the server.

The moment a hacker identifies a security loophole in the system, they prepare their attack.

As far as ransomware is concerned, computer files are encrypted and ransom is requested for the data to be released again.

It is possible to fix these flaws before hacker attacks happen through system updates, but this does not always happen in a timely manner and hackers are usually quite quick in their actions.

One of the ways to avoid ransomware is to keep operating systems always up-to-date, as malware easily invades when it perceives a system failure.

Another way ransomware attack can happen is through phishing which, in practice, occurs through an email sent with a strange attachment or code to your inbox.

This email arrives disguised as a known sender, such as an employee of the company itself, causing a person to open the attachment without so much suspicion.

By clicking on such an attachment, the virus gains access to all computers and devices connected to the system and the ransomware begins to encrypt the files until they are all taken “hostages”, and remain so until the desired payment is made to the cybercriminals.

It is important to mention that, although the hacker promises to release access to the data after payment, this may not happen, as these people are not trustworthy to simply believe their words without guarantees.

Also take the opportunity to read: The pillars of information security: part 2

Learn How to Handle a Ransomware Attack

In case a ransomware attack happens in your company, you must immediately notify the IT team who will be responsible for finding the last backup performed on the system.

When it occurs at home, the ideal is to disconnect the computer from the network and look for a professional who is an expert in information security to help you solve the problem.

One of the ways to protect yourself from these hacker attacks is to have an antivirus in your system, always kept up to date, in addition to performing regular backups of your data, preparing for possible losses in the future.

To Pay or Not to Pay for a Ransomware Attack?

Experts on the subject defend the idea that not paying for ransomware attacks is the best option because, as already mentioned, cybercriminals offer no guarantee that they will release the data later.

In some cases of this malware, it is entirely possible to solve the problem with the use of a good antivirus, for example.

When it comes to recovering data such as personal photos, legal documents, medical reports, and such, you must decide between the risk of paying and getting them back or not.

In the end, the most appropriate way to avoid these hacker attacks is to keep your system constantly protected by antivirus and security tools that cover cyberattacks like this one.

Furthermore, it is important to keep backups always up to date and your data stored in the cloud as another secure way to protect yourself.

It is worth noting that making payment for this type of hacker attack may even be considered illegal, as threats to sell or disclose confidential information on the dark web is a form of extortion, which is a crime under the law, as reported on Welivesecurity.

This is one of the cases where relying on a company that specializes in digital solutions becomes essential for good performance and data security in your company.

Was this content useful for you? Also read: Is Your Company Really Prepared for a Cyberattack?

Despite being something old, from the 1990s, few people know how pass-the-hash attacks work.

Keep reading the article to find out!

Where Did the Name “Pass-the-hash” Come From?

Pass-the-hash attacks occur when an attacker steals a user’s credential with a hash function.

Without “breaking” this function, the attacker reuses it to trick an authentication system into creating a new authenticated session on the same network.

For those who are not aware of it, a hash function is any algorithm that maps large, variable-sized data to small, fixed-sized data.

Hash functions are widely used in order to verify the integrity of downloads, search for elements in databases, or transmit and store passwords.

Hence the “pass-the-hash” name, which literally means this—exactly what attackers do through this attack.

How Are Pass-the-hash Attacks in Information Technology Classified?

Pass-the-hash attacks are primarily a lateral movement technique.

This means hackers are using the hash to extract additional information and credentials after they have already compromised a device.

By moving “sideways” between devices and accounts, attackers can “pass the hash” to get all the correct credentials from someone else.

With this, they can eventually “scale up” their domain privileges and access more influential systems, like an administrator account on their personal computer, without even needing their password.

Another interesting fact is that most of the movement performed during a pass-the-hash attack uses a remote software program, such as malware.

What Operating Systems Do Pass-the-hash Attacks Work On?

Typically, pass-the-hash attacks target Windows systems.

However, they can also work against other operating systems, in some cases on any authentication protocol such as Kerberos.

Windows is especially vulnerable to these attacks because of its single sign-on function.

This function allows users who, by entering the password only once, can access all the features they want.

The single sign-on function also requires users’ credentials to be cached on the system, making it easier for attackers to access.

That is one of the reasons why it is so important to know the 7 Tips to Prevent Cyberattacks While Remote Working.

How Do Pass-the-hash Attacks Work?

To perform a pass-the-hash attack, the attacker first obtains the hashes of the targeted system using any number of hash dump tools, such as fgdump and pwdump7.

The attacker then uses these tools to place the obtained hashes into a Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS).

Pass-the-hash attacks are often targeted at Windows machines due to the security vulnerability of NTLM (New Technology Local Area Network Manager) hashes once administrator privileges have been obtained.

These attacks often trick a Windows-based authentication system into “believing” that the attacker’s endpoint is the legitimate user’s endpoint.

Thus, the system automatically supplies the necessary credentials when the attacker tries to access the targeted system.

And all this can be done, as already said, without the need for the original password.

The key used by attackers to perform these types of attacks is the NTLM hash, which is nothing more than fixed-length mathematical codes derived from passwords.

NTLM hashes allow the attacker to use compromised domain accounts without extracting the password in plain text.

This is because computer operating systems such as Windows never actually send or save user passwords on their network.

Instead, these systems store passwords as encrypted NTLM hashes, which represent the password, but cannot be reverse-engineered.

NTLM hashes can still be used in place of a password to access various accounts and resources on the network.

For an attacker to be able to access LSASS, they must successfully compromise a computer to the point where the malware can run with local administrator rights.

Therefore, this is one of the biggest obstacles to pass-the-hash attacks. And knowing how to securely control your privileged accounts with PEDM is another big obstacle, too.

Once a Windows-based machine is compromised and the deployed malware is given access to local usernames and NTLM hashes, do you know what happens?

The attacker can even choose whether to get more credentials or try to access network resources using privileged user credentials.

By gathering more user credentials, an attacker can retrieve the credentials of users who have separate accounts on the Windows machine, such as a service account, or who still have remote access to the computer with an administrator login, for example.

Remote information technology (IT) administrators connecting to the compromised Windows machine will expose their NTLM username and hash to the now-integrated malware.

An attacker with IT administrator credentials can then move “sideways” across networked devices.

The “lateral movement” is an effective way to search for users with elevated privileges, such as administrative rights to protected resources.

Privilege escalation can be achieved by locating the credentials of an administrator with greater administrative access.

These elevated features can also include access to customer databases and email servers.

What Can Pass-the-hash Attacks Do to My Computer?

Because this type of attack exploits the features and capabilities of the NTLM protocol, the threat can never be completely eliminated.

Once an attacker compromises a computer, pass-the-hash becomes just one of the malicious activities that can be performed.

A 2019 study found that 95% of its 1,000 respondents experienced a direct business effect from pass-the-hash in their organizations.

About 40% of these attacks resulted in lost revenue and 70% incurred increased operational costs.

No wonder that many IT experts consider pass-the-hash attacks to be among the top cybersecurity vulnerabilities in Industry 4.0.

When it involves ransomware protection, it is better to be safer than sorry, isn’t it? To achieve this goal, a vigilant outlook and the right security software are essential, since a moment of carelessness is enough to fall victim to a cyberattack.

You probably know what ransomware is, but it is worth remembering: it is a type of extortion malware that can lock down your computer and then demand a ransom to return the operating systems. In May 2017, for example, the WannaCry variant spread around the world and reached more than 100 million users, claiming some major victims, such as the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). It infected more than 230,000 computers in 150 countries in just one day.

Since then, ransomware has spread around the world, with new types and new hits, and with that, cybersecurity solution makers have increasingly focused their actions on preventing attacks by this “pirate” of nowadays. And to support the fight against this increasingly frequent cybercrime, we launched the #stopransomwareattacks campaign on our social networks, with the aim of raising awareness among IT professionals and society about the variety of ways this malware appears on operating systems and the risks caused by a simple click.

What are the kinds of attacks?

The forms of attacks are diverse: ranging from messages about unlicensed applications to false claims about inappropriate content, in some cases resulting in the payment of fines or the need to restore devices to factory settings.

From the most aggressive to the most imperceptible forms, some of the main ransomware variants are:

Petya: It goes beyond hacking into files and can bring the entire system to a halt, causing devastating results.

zCrypt: It does not attack files directly; it acts like a classic virus, acting on recently handled files to boost the impact.

Jigsaw: This attack begins with a simple greeting message, followed by a ransom demand, threatening the victim with the removal of all their data within 72 hours.

Wannacry: The infection by this ransomware was indeed a global epidemic, scaring everyone and causing companies and government agencies to rush to seek protection solutions. The losses caused by this malicious software are estimated to have totaled $4 billion worldwide.

Ransomware, in all its forms and variants, represents a significant threat to both independent users and enterprises. That’s why it’s even more important to be aware of the threats it portrays and be extra careful in eventualities. 

Join the #stopransomwareattacks campaign! Post pictures on your social media networks with signs written with the hashtag, tag senhasegura’s profile and share with friends… Let’s stop the dynamics of malicious activity!

If you want to know more about how ransomware acts on a system, senhasegura will promote the webinar “Dissecting Ransomware Attack – Protecting your Company Accesses” on the October 26th at 3pm (CET), with a live demonstration by Cybersecurity Researcher, Filipi Pires, and by senhasegura’s System Analyst, Gabriel Oba, who will clarify all doubts with a highly conscious approach to the use of devices and what is the adequate product to mitigate the risks of this type of malicious attack. 

Updating the operating system is a common activity. However, in July 2021, one of Microsoft’s Windows updates gained prominence.  

Let’s talk about it: Windows print spooler failure: why should I update immediately?

What is Print Spooler Failure?

The print spooler is one of the Windows operating system components. Its purpose is to allow the exchange of information between computer and printer, as well as ordering the queue of documents that must be printed.

When this tool has a failure or there is a communication error between software and hardware, prints are not made.

Generally, these errors do not imply major security holes. However, the online disclosure of the flaw known as PrintNightmare sparks warning signs.

What is PrintNightmare?

PrintNightmare means exactly that. It has become known as a serious security hole in Windows print spooler.

Through this loophole, hackers can use the print spooler and its high level of access within Windows to completely control the computer.

With this, they can access any information, control programs and applications already installed, modify documents and folders, create new user accounts, and even install new apps. All this without the user having any control.

The print spooler failure does not only affect the latest versions of the Microsoft operating system. In fact, it can be exploited on computers with older versions, and even newer versions such as Windows 7.

If this error has been around for so long, why have updates been released to fix it just now?

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Print Spooler Failure Disclosure

The codes referring to this failure were released on the internet even before Microsoft experts were aware of the existence of the error.

Researchers at Sangfor Technologies, a Chinese company that works with network security systems, discovered this error and made a Proof of Concept (PoC), which is a hands-on exercise. It is used as documentation during the process of recognition, diagnosis, and correction of faults made by developers, whose goal is to demonstrate the feasibility and forms of a certain attack on a system.

Thus, the PoC created by Sangfor ended up being put online, as the researchers believed that the error had been resolved. When it was determined that Microsoft was not aware of the flaw, the information was taken down.

However, the PoC information ended up being posted on GitHub (a programmer’s social network that also serves as an information repository) before the fix was made available. Thus, sensitive data was available so that it could be analyzed and possible attacks planned.

According to Microsoft itself, the information regarding the print spooler failure and PrintNightmare have been used to carry out real attacks on computers using the Windows operating system.

Faced with this problem, Microsoft was forced to fix the errors quickly and release a new system update. It was released on July 6, 2021 and, according to the company, it is available for Windows 10, 8.1, and 7.

The company recommends that all Windows users immediately update their operating system in order to prevent the invasion of hackers through the print spooler failure.

How to Update Windows Operating System?

Normally, the Windows operating system is configured to automatically update the system. However, it is not uncommon for this function to fail.

Manually updating your Windows operating system is quite simple. Just access the settings through the Start Menu and click the icon referring to Updates and Security. Then click on the Windows Update tab and request to update the system.

For Windows 10, the update that fixes the print spooler failure is designated as follows: KB5004945. Once the update has been downloaded, simply restart your computer for the updates to install and the problem to be fixed.

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