Published on October 27th, 2021 📆 | 4626 Views ⚑
0Infrastructure Cybersecurity Alerts from CISA/FBI/NSA
The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency recently issued two joint alerts to critical infrastructure entitiesâone addressing BlackMatter Ransomware, and the second specifically to U.S. water and wastewater systems.
BlackMatter Ransomware AlertÂ
On October 18, 2021, CISA/FBI/NSA issued an alert providing information to critical infrastructure entities on BlackMatter ransomware. According to the Alert, BlackMatter ransomware has been targeting critical infrastructure entities since July of 2021, âincluding two U.S. Food and Agriculture Sector organizations.â BlackMatter uses âembedded, previously compromised credentialsâŚâ to âleverage the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Server Message Block (SMB) protocol to access the Active Directory (AD) to discover all hosts on the network. BlackMatter then remotely encrypts the hosts and shared drives as they are found.â
The Alert outlines the technical details of BlackMatter ransomware, as well as mitigations available to organizations âto reduce the risk of compromise by BlackMatter ransomwareâ which include implementing backup and restoration policies and procedures, using strong, unique passwords, using multi-factor authentication, and implementing network segmentation and traversal monitoring.
Ongoing Cyber Threats to U.S. Water and Wastewater Systems AlertÂ
Originally released on October 14, 2021, and updated on October 25, CISA/FBI/NSA issued an alert to U.S. Water and Wastewater Systems âto highlight ongoing malicious cyber-activityâby both known and unknown actorsâtargeting the information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) networks, systems and devices of U.S. Water and Wastewater Systems (WWS) Sector facilities.â
According to the Alert âThis activityâwhich includes attempts to compromise system integrity via unauthorized accessâthreatens the ability of WWS facilities to provide clean, potable water to, and effectively manage the wastewater of, their communities.â
The Alert outlines the technical details and an overview of the threat, and lists mitigations to apply, including not clicking on suspicious links, secure and monitor remote desktop protocol, use strong passwords, and use multi-factor authentication.
Copyright Š 2021 Robinson & Cole LLP. All rights reserved.National Law Review, Volume XI, Number 300
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