I. ‘Placeholder’ domains
Software development teams often use placeholders while writing code. Sometimes, these placeholders get inadvertently published to production software.
This happened to a Fortune 500 company. Read the story here: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/03/fintech-giant-fiserv-used-unclaimed-domain/
Fiserv inadvertently left a placeholder domain ‘defaultinstitution.com’ as a part of an email footer. A smart individual registered that domain and setup a catch all email address and received all the communication that got sent to the placeholder domain.
CISO Check:
SAST and DAST processes will not detect this kind of error. What processes should you have to be able to detect and rectify all placeholder data before being released?
II. Rise in incidents due to remote working?
The government of India has provided some statistics through CERT-in about the number of cybersecurity incidents in the years 2019 and 2020. There was a three fold rise in reported incidents from 2019 to 2020.
The union minister of state for home provided this information to the Lok Sabha. Read more about it here: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-bytes/15-5-lakh-cyber-security-incidents-in-2019-2020-govt-tells-lok-sabha/articleshow/81649425.cms
CISO Check:
This three fold rise has most likely affected the common man and not enterprises. Consider extending your end user awareness programs to include not just employees, but also their families as a part of your CSR initiatives.
III. Quote of the week
If you spend more on coffee than IT security, you will be hacked. What's more, you deserve to be hacked. - White House Cybersecurity Advisor, Richard Clarke