Major News Stories

• Atlassian has released a patch/fix after their Confluence security advisory from last week, but active exploitation is still occurring.
• More issues for Microsoft
  • Researchers Warn of Unpatched “DogWalk” Microsoft Windows Vulnerability
  • Microsofts “Follina” vulnerability is still actively being exploited by various groups, including suspected state-aligned threat actors
• Joint cybersecurity advisory co-authored by the NSA, CISA, and FBI, released regarding China’s state-sponsored cyber actors that have exploited Network providers and devices.

Other Software with Critical Patches Available

• GitLab released a critical security release

Learning – Phishing

I’m keeping the topic fairly simple this week with a brief explanation of phishing

First off, what is phishing? “Phishing is a cybercrime in which a target or targets are contacted by email, telephone, or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords.” Data obtained through phishing is often sold, and/or used to access important accounts in order to steal someone’s identity or money.

Next, how can you protect yourself from phishing attacks? The simplest way to protect yourself is to be informed and aware that phishing attacks are incredibly common and to think twice before you click on a link. Most links on trusted websites (https) are safe to click, but it’s especially important to be careful when clicking on links in emails or instant messages, even when you think they’re from someone you know. We’ve had multiple instances here at Maxwell where employees have received malicious texts and/or emails from people claiming to be a part of our leadership team. If you ever have doubts about who’s messaging or emailing you, reach out to that person using company-approved methods like slack. Also, if you ever have doubts about a link in an email, or even if you think the link is legitimate, hover over it to check the web address, or just bypass clicking the link by navigating to the website manually.

Also of note, cybercriminals are constantly adapting and finding new and improved ways to trick everyday users. There was an interesting report released this week called “Cybercriminals Exploit Reverse Tunnel Services and URL Shorteners to Launch Large-Scale Phishing Campaigns”. It’s always interesting to see how tools created for a completely different purpose end up being exploited by bad actors.

Sources & Resources

In addition to inline citations, the following were used or referenced when preparing this debrief.

• https://isc.sans.edu/podcast.html
• https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/06/08/1053375/
• https://www.phishing.org/

Thanks for reading, stay safe out there, and have a great weekend! 👩🏼‍💻 🌐 👨🏾‍💻