Size of Exactis Data Leak Could Surpass Equifax

Last week’s data leak at Exactis, a Florida-based marketing and data aggregation firm, has cyber security experts and data privacy advocates up in arms. WIRED reports:

Earlier this month, security researcher Vinny Troia discovered that Exactis, a data broker based in Palm Coast, Florida, had exposed a database that contained close to 340 million individual records on a publicly accessible server. The haul comprises close to 2 terabytes of data that appears to include personal information on hundreds of millions of American adults, as well as millions of businesses. While the precise number of individuals included in the data isn’t clear—and the leak doesn’t seem to contain credit card information or Social Security numbers—it does go into minute detail for each individual listed, including phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses, and other highly personal characteristics for every name.

Troia discovered the database by querying Shodan, a search engine for IoT devices. Shodan is widely used by security professionals, students and researchers – and cyber criminals. While there is currently no evidence that the Exactis data was accessed by hackers, being as it was fully publicly accessible to anyone with an internet connection for an undetermined period of time, Troia hypothesized to WIRED that he would “be surprised if someone else didn’t already have this.”

Could Exactis Data Leak Prompt an “American GDPR”?

With approximately 340 million records exposed, the Exactis leak is more than double the size of last year’s Equifax breach, although still smaller than the Yahoo breach. However, the size of the leak isn’t the most pressing issue; the nature of the data is. Although the data did not include credit card or Social Security numbers, it did contain home addresses, phone numbers, and emails. Each personal profile also contained up to 400 variables noting intricate personal details, including whether each person was a smoker; their religious preferences; if they had pets and what kind; if they had children, how many, and their genders and ages; and even their hobbies.

While cyber criminals cannot commit identity theft with this information alone, they can use it to launch highly targeted social engineering campaigns. In some cases, they could also use it to hack online accounts, as account security questions commonly ask for pet names, favorite vacation spots, and the other “personal profile”-type information collected by Exactis.

As of this writing, the number of individuals and businesses compromised by Exactis has not been determined, nor has it been determined whether any of the impacted records belong to EU data subjects, which would mean the leak falls under the purview of the GDPR.

The Exactis leak highlights numerous issues of deep concern to both cyber security experts and privacy advocates. Everyone knew who Equifax was even before they were breached. Most consumers, even most businesses, had probably never even heard of Exactis until last week. Personal data has become an industry in and of itself, and it’s an enormous industry filled with players large and small, well-known and obscure, who are busily aggregating and storing unknown amounts of personal data on every living person.

Despite the highly sensitive nature of the data they were aggregating, Exactis did not take even the most basic precautions to secure it; their database wasn’t even protected by a firewall. Since discoveries of misconfigured databases (especially on the AWS platform) have reached epidemic levels, it’s reasonable to assume that lax security is common.

While EU citizens and businesses can now turn to the GDPR, in the U.S., none of us have any clue who has our data, what they are doing with it, or even whether they’re storing it securely.

Will the Exactis leak be the final straw that leads to an “American GDPR”? In light of the fact that the Equifax breach prompted no changes, it’s unlikely that sweeping consumer privacy protection will pass on a federal level anytime soon. However, some states may take matters into their own hands. California just passed a comprehensive consumer privacy law that mirrors the GDPR. However, it does not go into effect until 2020, and the tech industry is mobilizing to have it amended. Should the California law emerge relatively unscathed, it could ultimately serve as a template for other state laws and, eventually, federal legislation.

The cyber security experts at Continuum GRC have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting your organization from security breaches. Continuum GRC offers full-service and in-house risk assessment and risk management subscriptions, and we help companies all around the world sustain proactive cyber security programs.

Continuum GRC is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-6207 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization protect its systems and ensure compliance.

Industrial Cyber Security is Just as Important as Securing Information Systems

Massive data breaches are what grab headlines, but industrial cyber security attacks can be devastating in the real world. Tesla has just learned this lesson the hard way. CEO Elon Musk has accused a malicious company insider of altering product code, stealing data and exporting it to third parties – and possibly even causing a factory fire. According to an internal email obtained by CNBC, Musk stated that the employee made “direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and export[ed] large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties.” The employee allegedly admitted that he sabotaged the company’s systems because “he wanted a promotion that he did not receive.”

According to the email, Tesla has not determined if the employee acted alone or in conjunction with other disgruntled insiders or outside hackers.

IT-OT Convergence Necessitates Stronger Industrial Cyber Security

Although attacks on industrial systems – the “behind-the-scenes” technology that powers factories, mining operations, and critical infrastructure such as utilities, healthcare facilities, and transportation networks – are rapidly escalating, industrial cyber security remains, at best, an afterthought. Many industrial organizations focus their security efforts on their information technology (IT) and give little thought to their operational technology (OT) other than possibly air-gapping their OT systems.

For many years, air-gapping worked. Industrial networks enjoyed “security by isolation” and “security by obscurity.” Many industrial organizations, especially utility companies, employ equipment that is literally decades old; it was built before the internet as we know it today existed and was developed for reliability and safety, not cyber security.

However, the advent of the internet and the convergence of IT and OT have negated both security by isolation and security by obscurity. While OT systems once ran on simple, isolated, point-to-point networks with proprietary communication tools, they are now connected to enterprise networks, with open protocols such as the Ethernet and Internet protocol (IP). Additionally, OT networks are frequently connected to each other and, at least to some extent, to enterprise IT systems. Even allegedly “air-gapped” OT systems are accessible via USB drives or Bluetooth.

Industrial Equipment Needs Industrial Cyber Security

Some organizations attempt to apply the same cyber security principles that they use on their IT systems to their industrial equipment. This is entirely wrong. While there are some similarities, securing industrial networks is quite different than securing IT networks. OT and IT employees are often siloed from each other; many IT employees, even those with many years of experience, are wholly unfamiliar with the highly specialized equipment and procedures on the OT side. The two sides also have different concerns, especially regarding reliability and safety.

Unlike IT equipment, which processes, stores, and transmits data, OT equipment controls industrial processes that impact the real world. Hackers who breach IT systems can do things like steal data or crash ordering systems. Although these attacks are quite damaging in their own right, attacks on OT systems could destroy industrial equipment or cause it to malfunction, potentially putting human life and safety at risk – as in the Tesla factory fire. Some security experts have pointed out that it could have been worse; a breach of Tesla’s industrial systems could allow hackers to alter the firmware in the company’s cars, perhaps with deadly consequences.

Realizing the unique requirements of industrial cyber security, NIST developed SP 800-82, Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security. SP 800-82 is “intended to help pipeline operators, power producers, manufacturers, air traffic control centers and other managers of critical infrastructures to secure their systems while addressing their unique performance, reliability, and safety requirements.” It references ISA/IEC-62443, a common set of standards for industrial control systems.

The threats to industrial cyber security are real and growing. It is imperative that organizations put the proper technologies and processes in place to protect their equipment, employees, and the public at large.

The cyber security experts at Continuum GRC have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting your organization from security breaches. Continuum GRC offers full-service and in-house risk assessment and risk management subscriptions, and we help companies all around the world sustain proactive cyber security programs.

Continuum GRC is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-6207 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization protect its systems and ensure compliance.

Air gapping is no longer a viable solution for ICS security.

There has never been a power outage in the U.S. due to a cyber attack, but it happened in Ukraine over the Christmas holidays in 2015, and there have been attempts to breach U.S. power companies and hack the power grid.

In March, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an alert regarding a “multi-stage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors who targeted small commercial facilities’ networks where they staged malware, conducted spear phishing, and gained remote access into energy sector networks.” The alert went on to say that “After obtaining access, the Russian government cyber actors conducted network reconnaissance, moved laterally, and collected information pertaining to Industrial Control Systems (ICS).”

ICS security was back in the headlines last week, after the U.S. Department of Energy made public a report from August 2017 outlining a half-dozen “capability gaps” in the ability of the U.S. power sector to respond to a cyber attack.

For decades, the first line of cyber defense for the SCADA and other industrial control systems that run the nation’s power grid (and are also used by water utilities, oil and gas companies, and in transportation networks) was “security by isolation,” also known as air gapping. Because these systems were isolated both from the internet and internal enterprise networks, the logic went, they could not be hacked. This was sound logic in pre-internet days and even in the early days of the internet, but not in our hyper-connected, always-on, digital world. Now, the air gap is arguably the biggest myth of ICS security.

Most Air Gaps Have … Gaps

A truly air-gapped device is completely isolated from the outside world. In addition to no internet or intranet, the device is not accessible by Bluetooth, WiFi, or routable IPs. USB ports are locked down, and physical access is strictly controlled. Such a setup rarely exists in nature. Often, network audits discover “off-grid” remote connections the security staff didn’t know about. Usually, these were installed by employees or vendors for purposes of remote monitoring, repair, and troubleshooting, but they’re still outside connections.

Air Gapping Can Promote a False Sense of ICS Security

Even if a system is properly air gapped, it is not impenetrable. As the Stuxnet attack proved, air gapping does not protect against insider threats. It also doesn’t protect against compromised software updates or hardware.

IT & OT Are Converging

In an always-on digital world where information technology (IT) is converging with operational technology (OT), air gapping poses a significant opportunity cost. Organizations that air gap their ICS and other OT systems are foregoing the valuable process data those systems generate: data that provides actionable intelligence that could be used to optimize equipment, improve safety, reduce environmental impacts, and cut costs. Because air gapped systems cannot be accessed remotely, repairs and routine maintenance are time-consuming and costly, and the lack of visibility into the system hampers your ability to respond to problems.

Instead of depending on air gapping, utilities and other organizations that use ICS or other operational technologies should adopt a layered approach to cyber security. A secure network architecture, combined with technologies that were specifically designed for ICS security purposes, provides much better cyber security while allowing organizations to take advantage of the IIoT and other innovative digital technologies.

The cyber security experts at Continuum GRC have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting your organization from security breaches. Continuum GRC offers full-service and in-house risk assessment and risk management subscriptions, and we help companies all around the world sustain proactive cyber security programs.

Continuum GRC is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-6207 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization protect its systems and ensure compliance.