Information Technology

Services Australia has told Senate Estimates that it reported a total of 20 cybersecurity incidents to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) in 2019-20, covering its responsibility across the Department of Social Services, the National Disability Insurance Agency, and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, in addition to its own IT shop.The ACSC reported receiving a total of 436 notifications from government entities.Services Australia CEO Rebecca Skinner said while it wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss the nature of the incidents, her agency did not have breaches of Australian citizen data. As one of the largest government entities, Services Australia has its own security operation centre (SOC) that, since 2017, has been responsible for protecting all of its systems, including the ones that hold Centrelink, Medicare, and child support information.”We are always undertaking security reviews, upgrades, patches — those sorts of things to maintain our responsibilities against [the] ASD essential eight security arrangements,” she added.Skinner said the agency’s cybersecurity division blocks about 14 million suspicious emails a month.”If something looks strange, people do something,” she said, noting the division also detects multiple campaigns attempting to attack its systems. “We’re monitoring all of those.”

Services Australia chief information officer Michael McNamara said the SOC also “runs its own testing, in terms of the dark web”.See also: Cops are the only ones being lawful on the dark web, AFP declares”We have our own internal capability … that routinely works through that and identifies issues in that domain,” he told Senators. “We can’t discuss any individual cases, But we do work very, very closely with the AFP and the ACSC and ASD.”McNamara said that while a lot of its data is not classified with a national security classification, it is all treated the same as the agency’s most sensitive and important datasets.”They reside, if you like, in physical security centres that are equivalent to the sorts that you would protect national security information in, it’s just technically, they don’t have a national security classification,” he explained.”We have a very robust data security framework inside the agency … [including] a data integrity framework, which looks at training our staff on the use of data on the inappropriate and appropriate use of data, distribution of data. We do that on a regular basis.”He said there are also a number of access controls in place, such as monitoring tools, in addition to multifactor authentication across the agency and the systems it controls. “Our systems, as you can imagine, are secure by their very nature and design, and the data is encrypted at rest,” he added. “As that data is moved, we will use our monitoring tools to control the movement, the distribution of that data, particularly if it leaves the agency.”He said the same requirements are placed on its biggest contractors — Telstra, Microsoft, and IBM.MORE FROM SERVICES AUSTRALIA More

Australia’s coronavirus contact tracing app, COVIDSafe, was sold as “digital sunscreen” with people encouraged by the Prime Minister to download the app in order to have life return to some form of normal.There have been over 7 million downloads of the app, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s logged into, or being used by individuals that have the app taking up real estate on their phone. The app has received scrutiny from the country’s security community from day one, and it has only accounted for a total of 17 cases found, with 81 close contacts of those 17 identified through the app, too. The Senate Select Committee on COVID-19 also previously said the app significantly under-delivered on Scott Morrison’s promise that the app would enable an opening up of the economy in a COVID safe manner.As previously disclosed by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), the app cost in excess of AU$5 million.DTA CEO Randall Brugeaud told senators on Thursday night that the cost to keep the app’s lights on, so far, has been around AU$900,000.”The spend to date on the app is AU$6,745,322.31, that’s to 31 January,” he said.”That includes a combination of development, which is the actual build of the app, and the hosting of the app. So the breakdown is, for the development of the app, AU$5,844,182.51 and the hosting is AU$901,139.80.”

Brugeaud said COVIDSafe has moved into the “business as usual state”, which means the DTA simply applies “very small amounts of maintenance”. “It costs about AU$100,000 per month to run the infrastructure and we’ve made a provision for about AU$200,000 per month to allow us to make future changes,” he said. “Now, that isn’t money that must be spent, but we’ve estimated about AU$200,000 a month for future feature changes that may be required by the Department of Health who is the business owner of the app.”Labor Senator Nita Green asked why there was a need to continue sinking funds into an app that has barely been used.”COVIDSafe was developed based on the health need and it will continue to be supported until we’re advised that capability is no longer required,” Brugeaud said.”I know it seems like a small number, 17 … I think it was 774 detections that have occurred, but just think through 17 people going undetected, and what that might look like in terms of shutdowns,” Minister for Families and Social Services Anne Ruston added.”Even though it may seem like a small number, that could have had a very significant impact on the health outcomes or the economic outcomes for our country.”Ruston said the app was designed at a time when it was thought Australia would have a lot more cases than it did. “Not withstanding that, it was something that was put in place at the time, an unknown time, it has served a purpose, whether it has served as much of a purpose as perhaps it might otherwise — but, clearly the health officers, the CMOs in both Victoria and New South Wales have both indicated that they believe that the app has had provided a very positive opportunity and benefit to their states,” she said. “It was a decision that was taken that has provided some value.”Brugeaud said there could be more contacts located via the app, but legislation is preventing the government from having access to the data.He also said, however, the app has received “very good feedback” from the tech community to help the DTA improve the app.Digital vaccination record limboLast month, Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert touted a vaccination passport, a digital record confirming people have received the jab through the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR).”They will have a record, they will have a digital and paper certificate. For some 89% of Australians that have a smartphone, they will be able to access that digital certificate in their smartphone, download it onto their phone as a permanent record,” Robert said at the time.The certificate would be available, he said, through linking myGov and Medicare online services.Brugeaud said the DTA has been working with Services Australia on a “range of enhancements” to myGov, including a release which is about to occur and will provide access through myGov to the AIR.”That will provide access to the current immunisation record,” he said. “There are discussions currently underway in relation to the creation of a potential vaccination certificate, but that would be a question for Services Australia … we’re not leading the work on the vaccination certificate.”Time ran out during Senate Estimates on Thursday night to hear testimony from Services Australia on the progress of the AIR.HERE’S MORE More

First, the good news. Starting with the mid-April release of Google’s Chrome 90 web browser, Chrome will default to trying to load the version of a website that’s been secured with a Transport Layer Security (TLS). These are the sites that show a closed lock in the Chrome Omnibox, what most of us know as the Chrome address (URL) bar. The bad news is that just because a site is secured by HTTPS doesn’t mean it’s trustworthy. 

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A few years ago, WordFence, a well-regarded WordPress security company, found that SSL certificates are being issued by certificate authorities (CA) to phishing sites pretending to be other sites. Because the certificates are valid, even though they’re operating under false premises, Chrome reports these sites as being secure. True, the data sent along that connection is secure, but safe? I think not! Of course, CAs shouldn’t issue bogus security certificates. Unfortunately, it happens. A perfect example of “Why we can’t have nice things,” it’s been revealed that Let’s Encrypt, the free, open, and automated CA, had been used to create thousands of SSL certificates for phishing sites illegally using “PayPal” as part of their name. It’s not just PayPal. Google, Microsoft, and Apple have also had their names taken in vain by phishers. It’s also not just that the CA process can be abused. Paul Walsh, founder and CEO of the zero-trust security company, MetaCert and co-founder of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) URL Classification Standard, sees many other problems with our naïve belief that HTTPS alone is enough to secure our internet connections. True, Walsh tweeted, “When DNS-based security services were first introduced, most of the web wasn’t encrypted, and threat actors didn’t use trusted domains like Google, Microsoft, GitHub, et al. So they were effective in the past, but less effective today.” When the leading free CA, Let’s Encrypt, began in 2015, less than a fifth of websites were secured by HTTPS. Today, 82.2% of sites are covered. That was then. This is now. And there are other problems.First, Walsh believes that what Google is doing is “great in theory, but their execution sucks. I think it’s unethical for a single company that represents a single stakeholder to railroad what they think is the right thing for every website creator and every person that uses the web.” Walsh isn’t the only one that feels that way, while many people think of this as a small, but real, step forward in web security, others think, “Forcing https on people’s throats is a stupid idea.”

Besides, as Walsh observed in his analysis of website security, “the basic [URL] padlock is designed to tell users when their connection to a website is encrypted. A padlock doesn’t represent anything related to trust or identity. Browser designers didn’t do a good job with the design of their UI. They should have made website identity more obvious — such as a separate icon on the toolbar — making it completely separate to the padlock.”In other words, you can be “safely” secured to a site that’s pretending to be the real Amazon, eBay, or PayPal. That’s a fail.Also: What is phishing? Everything you need to know to protect yourself from scam emails and moreThis happens not just because of the fake sites with real HTTPS certificates. Walsh points out that Modlishka attacks create a reverse-proxy between you and the website you want to visit. It looks like you’re connected to the real thing because you get authentic content from the legitimate website but the reverse-proxy is silently redirecting all your traffic to and from the Modlishka server. Thus, your “credentials and sensitive information such as a password or crypto wallet address entered by the user are automatically passed on to the threat actor. The reverse proxy also asks users for 2FA tokens when prompted by the website. Attackers can then collect these 2FA tokens in real-time, to access the victims’ accounts.”Ouch.Besides that, Walsh is not at all convinced that free and easy HTTPS certificates is a good thing at all. Walsh wrote, “The volume of cyberattacks that use automatically issued free DV certificates has weakened the Trusted Computing Base (TCB) of the internet in my opinion. And free DV certificates are an existential threat to the safety and wellbeing of society.”The answer? According to Walsh, CAs should: Tighten up their identity verification processes.Reduce the cost, time, and effort of acquiring identity verification.Browser vendors should design a meaningful icon for identity verification for the browser toolbar — away from the padlock.Browser vendors should improve the user experience so websites’ real identity is intuitive.Then, and only then, will the web be well on its way to being truly secure. Related Stories: More

Now that you’re finally serious about backing up your Windows PC or Mac, you’ve probably figured out that the backup software included with your preferred operating system just isn’t going to cut it.Also: PC and Mac backup: How to protect your data from disasterSure, you can use the built-in tools (Time Machine on a Mac or File History on Windows 10), if you’re willing to settle for a limited feature set with few options outside the standard settings. But replacing those default utilities with one of these third-party alternatives unlocks a wide range of useful features and capabilities that can save you time and disk space, not to mention helping you sleep better.

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The best cloud storage services

Free and cheap personal and small business cloud storage services are everywhere. But, which one is best for you? Let’s look at the top cloud storage options.

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Backup software features to look forOn the backup side, these are the features that matter most:The ability to create a disk image that can restore the entire contents of a PC or Mac, so you can recover quickly after a disk crash or other data disasterOngoing backups that can save your work daily, hourly, or in real-time, so you never risk losing important workProtection from ransomware attacksThe option to save backup files on a local drive, on a network server, or in the cloudAnd when the day arrives that you have to call on those backups to recover your files, a good backup program will allow you to quickly mount that backup image as a virtual drive to retrieve individual files or folders. Or you can boot from recovery media to restore an entire image.Those backup files come in handy even if you didn’t have a data catastrophe. Good backup software offers an effortless way to migrate your PC or Mac when you upgrade to a new device, allowing you to be productive immediately without having to reinstall apps or re-create settings.How we choseYou might be startled by just how many third-party backup products there are to choose from. We were even more surprised by the sheer number and complexity of purchase and subscription options for those products.

Those that offer a free version try (sometimes very aggressively) to upsell you to one of their paid plans, which typically come in multiple tiers, in home and commercial versions, and with varying discounts for longer subscription terms and multiple licenses. Getting all the bells and whistles you think you need, especially if you have multiple devices to protect, can run up a pretty hefty bill.All the products we’ve included here have a good reputation, as evidenced by comments on public forums and reviews from trusted sources. It’s worth noting that backups can fail for a variety of reasons, usually at the worst possible time, so we’ve given extra marks to companies that offer easily accessible support options.The most important feature we looked for is the ability to create a backup image that can be stored on a local drive (typically USB or network storage). Some programs also offer the ability to back up to the cloud. We’ve highlighted those programs for the benefit of those who have that combination of manageable data sets and high bandwidth that make an all-cloud option feasible. We didn’t include products like Carbonite, which are exclusively focused on cloud-based backup.Other important features we looked for include easy options for restoring a single file or folder from a backup set, as well as robust scheduling and reporting options.As always, this listing doesn’t represent a full hands-on review. We didn’t stress-test these apps, and we encourage you to do your own testing to ensure that the backup and restore features (especially the latter) meet your standards for ease of use and robustness.

A solid free version, with a vast array of upgrade options

The free version of Macrium Reflect 7 is surprisingly robust, offering solid imaging and cloning capabilities that are licensed for use in home and business environments. The resulting images can be browsed in Windows Explorer or mounted instantly in a Hyper-V VM.You’ll need to upgrade, though, if you want to add file/folder backups to the mix, or encrypt your backups, or create space-saving incremental backups. The Home and Workstation versions ($70 and $75 per PC, respectively, with discounts for multiple licenses) also add protection against ransomware attacks.The company also offers Server and Server Plus editions as well as a specialized Technicians edition ($799) that allows IT pros to create snapshots of an unlimited number of PCs or servers using a USB flash drive instead of installing the software to each PC.  

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Would you like security software with your backups?

Acronis is one of the best-known names in backup, with its flagship True Image product recently celebrating its 18th birthday. The latest version, True Image 2021, is available on Windows PCs and MacOS and offers a wide range of antimalware features in addition to the familiar backup tools.True Image 2021 is offered in three subscription editions. The entry-level Essential package ($50 per year) does disk imaging and file backups to local and network destinations. For cloud backup, you’ll need to upgrade to the pricier Advanced or Premium editions, ($90 and $125 per year, respectively), which offer 500 GB or more of cloud storage in Acronis’s protected data centers. All three editions include incremental and differential backups as well as non-stop backups.Acronis doesn’t offer a free version of True Image, although you can try it out for free for 30 days without having to supply a credit card.

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The free edition comes with incessant upsell offers

EaseUS Todo Backup comes in three editions, including a free offering that covers most of the backup bases. You can back up an entire system, a specific disk, or data locations of your choosing. And you can send that backup file to a local drive, a network location, or one of three popular cloud locations: Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive.If you choose the free option, however, be ready for constant reminders that the company really wants you to upgrade to one of its paid products. Those reminders include pop-up notifications and orange reminders in the user interface that specific features aren’t available to you.Those paid upgrades are primarily available as subscriptions, at a yearly cost of $30 per PC for the Home edition and $39 for Pro. With the home upgrade, you lose the upsells and get the ability to transfer a system to a new PC. The Pro edition includes a Smart Backup feature that runs every half-hour to capture recent changes.

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Surprisingly sophisticated and free for home use

Paragon’s Backup & Recovery Community Editions are free for home use, but you’ll need a license if you want to use them for commercial purposes or as part of a business network joined to a domain. The free edition includes versions for Mac and Windows as well as Backup for Hyper-V Host, which does full backups and one-click restores of virtual machines in non-production environments.The Backup & Recovery version 17 interface is easy to use, with options to schedule full system backups with incremental or differential updates as well as data backups focusing on key locations. Those backup features are part of a larger paid product, Paragon Hard Disk Manager 17, which costs $80 for a home version covering three PCs or $99 for a single business license. The full product also includes advanced partitioning tools, drive migration features, and disk wiping methods.

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Pro and EZ options available

NTI’s website has the old-school look you’d expect from a company that has been around since Windows 95 was still new and fresh. For Windows, you can take your choice of NTI Backup Now Pro and  NTI Backup Now EZ, with list prices of $70 and $50, respectively. For Mac users, the complete backup solution is NTI Shadow 5 for Mac, which lists for $40 for a single license. There’s no free edition, but you can get a 30-day trial, and the company is aggressive with discounts.NTI Backup Now Pro offers a full range of backup options, with file backups, drive imaging, and cloud backups using Microsoft Azure. A Continuous Backup option (not available on Backup Now EZ) ensures that work you do between scheduled backups is protected.It’s worth noting that NTI has a warning on its product page that its complete system restore operation isn’t compatible with “some tablet PCs (e.g. Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablets).” This warning appears to be outdated but it should be a red flag for anyone whose primary PC fits that description.

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Two severe vulnerabilities have been patched in the Facebook for WordPress Plugin.

Disclosed by the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team this week, the bugs impact Facebook for WordPress, formerly known as Official Facebook Pixel. The plugin, used to capture user actions when they visit a page and to monitor site traffic, has been installed on over 500,000 websites. On December 22, the cybersecurity researchers privately disclosed a critical vulnerability to the vendor which has been issued a CVSS severity score of 9. The vulnerability, described as a PHP Object injection, was found in the run_action() function of the software. If a valid nonce was generated — such as through the use of a custom script — an attacker could supply the plugin with PHP objects for malicious purposes and go so far as to upload files to a vulnerable website and achieve Remote Code Execution (RCE). “This flaw made it possible for unauthenticated attackers with access to a site’s secret salts and keys to achieve remote code execution through a deserialization weakness,” the team says.  The second vulnerability, deemed of high importance, was discovered on January 27. The cross-site request forgery security flaw, which leads to a cross-site scripting issue, was introduced accidentally when the plugin was rebranded. 

When the software was updated, an AJAX function was introduced to make plugin integration easier. However, a permissions check problem in the function opened up an avenue for attackers to craft requests that could be executed “if they could trick an administrator into performing an action while authenticated to the target site,” according to Wordfence.”The action could be used by an attacker to update the plugin’s settings to point to their own Facebook Pixel console and steal metric data for a site,” the team says. “Worse yet, since there was no sanitization on the settings that were stored, an attacker could inject malicious JavaScript into the setting values.” Malicious JavaScript could, for example, be used to create backdoors in themes or create new admin accounts for hijacking entire websites.  The reports were accepted by Facebook’s security team and a patch for the first vulnerability was released on January 6, followed by a second fix on February 12. However, the patch for the second bug required tweaking and a full fix was not published until February 17. Both vulnerabilities have been updated in version 3.0.4, and so it is recommended that webmasters update to the latest version available of the plugin, which is currently 3.0.5. ZDNet has reached out to Facebook for comment and we will update when we hear back.  Previous and related coverage Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More

Two in five businesses have experienced a cyber attack over the course of the last year, with one particular threat by far the most commonly faced.And the rise in remote working coupled with a slight drop in organisations using security monitoring tools to identify abnormal activity could mean that the actual number of organisations which have fallen victim to cyber crime is higher. They just don’t know they’ve been compromised yet.The figures are detailed in the annual Cyber Security Breaches Survey from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which shows how businesses approach cybersecurity and the impact of attacks.The 2021 report comes following a year where organisations had to quickly adapt to remote working, potentially heightening cyber risk as employees were no longer protected behind corporate firewalls, but are rather working from their own homes.Over 80 percent of organisations which identified cyber attacks during the last year were targeted by phishing emails, with cyber criminals using malicious messages in efforts to drop malware or coerce people into clicking on malicious links. SEE: Cybersecurity: Let’s get tactical (ZDNet/TechRepublic special feature) | Download the free PDF version (TechRepublic) Just over a quarter of organisations identified email attacks where attackers were impersonating people or businesses online – this could either be an attempt to steal credentials, or trying Business Email Compromise attacks, where cyber criminals attempt to trick employees into making large financial transfers, often pretending to be an important business deal or contract.

Email has long been a common means of conducting cyber attacks, but the shift towards remote work over the last year means people are more reliant on it for workplace collaboration. The report suggests that this could be why some businesses aren’t able to identify cyber attacks or data breaches.Just over one in twenty organisations say they’ve identified an attempted ransomware attack.While the majority of organisations which have identified a cyber attack have attempted to take action, including providing additional staff training, updating antivirus software, changing firewall configurations or installing other new software, just over a third didn’t take any action at all after detecting an incident.The report also notes that there’s been an increase in organisations which have taken out some form of cyber insurance in order to help cover the financial costs associated with cyber attacks.The report makes several recommendations to organisations in order ensure their networks are secure and resilient to cyber attacks. These include protecting accounts with multi-factor authentication and boosting staff awareness around cybersecurity issues with training. The report also recommends that organisations take more action around supply chain risk management, so there’s greater protection against attacks which might attempt to exploit the supply chain as a means of network access.”It is important for organisations, management boards and IT teams to recognise that good cyber security facilitates better business resilience. This has not always been appreciated during the pandemic, when the focus on short-term business and IT service continuity has sometimes overshadowed discussions on cyber security,” said the report.”When emerging from the pandemic, there may be an opportunity for cyber security teams to reframe these discussions, to show that cyber security is an integral component of business resilience,” it concluded. MORE ON CYBERSECURITY More

Cloudflare has launched a new web security offering to prevent Magecart-style attacks. 

Magecart is an umbrella term used to describe JavaScript-based, card-skimming attacks. Legitimate websites and e-commerce platforms containing vulnerabilities — such as in a back-end content management system (CMS) or third-party script dependencies — are exploited, JavaScript code is embedded in e-commerce-related pages, and then any payment card information submitted to these pages is harvested and sent to attackers. Countless companies have, and continue to, fall prey to Magecart attacks. Past victims include British Airways, Ticketmaster, Newegg, and Boom! Mobile.  “These attacks are challenging to detect because many application owners trust third-party JavaScript to function as intended,” Cloudflare says. “Because of this trust, third-party code is rarely audited by the application owner. In many cases, Magecart attacks have lasted months before detection.” To combat this issue, on Thursday, Cloudflare debuted Page Shield, a client-side security solution.  The Script Monitor feature, included in Page Shield, checks third-party JavaScript dependencies and records any new additions over time.  Script Monitor, currently in Beta and found under the Firewall section of customer dashboards, also adds a Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only header to content passing through Cloudflare’s network. 

When JavaScript attempts to execute, browsers will send reports back to the company which are checked to see if there are any new changes — and then customers are alerted so customers can “investigate and determine whether the change was expected,” Cloudflare says.  The company is also working with cybersecurity partners to obtain Magecart JavaScript samples. Eventually, it is hoped that Page Shield will be accurate enough to alert clients when dependencies appear to be malicious.  Business and Enterprise customers can now sign up to access the Page Shield closed beta. Earlier this week, the company introduced Cloudflare Browser Isolation, a zero-trust browser system for protecting the remote workforce — and the organizations they work for — from threats by creating a gap between active browsing sessions and end-devices.  Previous and related coverage Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More

Microsoft Teams has become a core platform in the new ‘work from home’ era and reflecting its growing importance, Microsoft has launched a bug bounty rewards program for researchers who find security flaws in desktop software. Microsoft is offering up to $30,000 to security researchers in its Teams bug bounty with “scenario-based awards for vulnerabilities” if they have a big impact on customer privacy and security. Rewards start at $6,000.

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The top reward reflects the growing importance of Microsoft Teams, which has 115 million daily active users.SEE: Top 100+ tips for telecommuters and managers (free PDF) (TechRepublic)The bug bounty only applies to the Microsoft Teams desktop client, which is available for Windows 10, macOS and Linux. The bounty does not apply to the Teams app for desktop browsers or the native mobile apps for iOS and Android. The $30,000 reward is available for researchers who can clearly outline a remote code execution bug using native code in the context of the current user with no user interaction. Microsoft is also offering $15,000 for a bug that allows an attacker to obtain authentication credentials for other users, but phishing is excluded. 

It’s offering $10,000 for cross site scripting (XSS) flaws or other remote code injection that allows an attacker to execute arbitrary scripts in the context of teams.microsoft.com or teams.live.com with no user interaction. The same amount is available for researchers who can demonstrate a way to elevate privileges in a way that hops over the Windows and user boundary. The $6,000 reward is available for researchers who find a XSS or other “code injection resulting in ability to execute arbitrary scripts in the context of teams.microsoft.com or teams.live.com with minimal user interaction.”Microsoft is also offering general bounty awards for the Teams desktop app that fall outside the scenario-based awards, with rewards ramping up to $15,000. SEE: Cybercrime groups are selling their hacking skills. Some countries are buyingTeams in the browser continues to fall under the Online Services Bounty Program.Teams rival Zoom last year revamped its own bug bounty program with Luta Security. More