Cyber Defense eMagazine March Edition for 2022
The view from the Publisher’s desk is very encouraging, based on celebrating 10 years of growth and success at Cyber Defense Magazine! When our tiny team began our journey at Cyber Defense Media Group (CDMG) together in January 2012, we were happy to help smaller, lesser-known innovators of infosec, get their message out there and Rise Above the noise. Now, after 10 years, we’re even helping multi-billion-dollar companies and governments around the globe with our offices in DC, London, FL, NY and other locations in play, as we continue to scale, thanks to you – our readers, listeners, viewers and media partners. Beyond the magazine, in response to the demands of our markets, the scope of CDMG’s activities has grown into many media endeavors. They now include Cyber Defense Awards; Cyber Defense Conferences; Cyber Defense Professionals (job postings site being revamped); Cyber Defense TV, Radio, and Webinars; and Cyber Defense Ventures (partnering with investors). Please check them out and see how much more CDMG has to offer! Very respectfully and with much appreciation, Gary Miliefsky, Publisher
The view from the Publisher’s desk is very encouraging, based on celebrating 10 years of growth and success at Cyber Defense Magazine! When our tiny team began our journey at Cyber Defense Media Group (CDMG) together in January 2012, we were happy to help smaller, lesser-known innovators of infosec, get their message out there and Rise Above the noise. Now, after 10 years, we’re even helping multi-billion-dollar companies and governments around the globe with our offices in DC, London, FL, NY and other locations in play, as we continue to scale, thanks to you – our readers, listeners, viewers and media partners. Beyond the magazine, in response to the demands of our markets, the scope of CDMG’s activities has grown into many media endeavors. They now include Cyber Defense Awards; Cyber Defense Conferences; Cyber Defense Professionals (job postings site being revamped); Cyber Defense TV, Radio, and Webinars; and Cyber Defense Ventures (partnering with investors).
Please check them out and see how much more CDMG has to offer!
Very respectfully and with much appreciation,
Gary Miliefsky, Publisher
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Why am I rehashing this old trope? Because Barracuda Networks reported a 521% increase in phishing<br />
emails using COVID-19 Omicron variant to entice victims between October 2021 and January <strong>2022</strong>.<br />
People looking <strong>for</strong> home testing kits were prime targets and easy prey. Webroot reported a 440%<br />
increase in May 2021. And more will keep coming.<br />
“So, Guy,” you may ask, “how can you save us from phishing?” Well, I cannot, and no one else can<br />
either. What we need to do is bite the bullet and shift our strategy from trying to block everything to<br />
assuming we are already compromised, breached, hacked, etc. Once you start from that viewpoint, it<br />
does not matter that you cannot fix stupid, you just have to deal with the aftermath. Your focus is now on<br />
threat hunting, looking <strong>for</strong> signs of compromise. Do you have tools that can watch low and slow network<br />
behavior that are indications of stealth scanning? Can you identify regular bursty encrypted traffic being<br />
sent someplace out on the internet that might be data being exfiltrated? Can you track system resource<br />
utilization <strong>for</strong> signs of cryptomining or other malicious behavior?<br />
What makes looking <strong>for</strong> these kinds of behavior difficult is they are all AI-based. That’s right, attackers<br />
have learned to weaponize artificial intelligence (AI) into advanced persistent threats (APTs) and other<br />
malware payloads. The malicious software installed has become so much smarter than you think. It will<br />
look <strong>for</strong> specific targets, domains, even countries be<strong>for</strong>e it decides to activate. It can hide inside legitimate<br />
processes running in memory, evading security scans. In fact, it can disable security software running on<br />
systems without you knowing about it.<br />
There is a powerful batch script available now called Defeat-Defender that can shut down all Windows<br />
Defender processes silently. The best part is Defeat-Defender can masquerade as a legitimate process,<br />
evading the new Windows Tamper Protection functionality. All from opening an infected Word document.<br />
<strong>Cyber</strong> <strong>Defense</strong> <strong>eMagazine</strong> – <strong>March</strong> <strong>2022</strong> <strong>Edition</strong> 85<br />
Copyright © <strong>2022</strong>, <strong>Cyber</strong> <strong>Defense</strong> Magazine. All rights reserved worldwide.
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