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3 Cause’s of the Crowdstrike down in reality

Keep in mind this is my personal opinion..please prove me wrong if you can.

3 Cause’s of the Crowdstrike down
1) Bad Developer file uploaded
2) Microsoft Software ( Be a developer of software not a security expert
3) Distribution of software via Cloudfare

Keep in mind this is my personal opinion..please prove me wrong if you can.

A faulty kernel driver developed by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike has caused a massive Microsoft outage that is currently causing chaos around the world. Windows machines have been crippled by the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on a global scale. The situation is so serious that flights are being grounded, major banks are experiencing problems with their systems, while key emergency 911 services have also been affected.

Cloudflare (down more then its up we have logs) Expands Relationship with Microsoft, Makes Industry Leading …
Jan 12, 2023Cloudflare and Microsoft announce new integrations between Cloudflare One and Microsoft Azure Active Directory to help customers deploy Zero Trust security across applications, users, devices and networks. The partnership also includes features such as Remote Browser Isolation

“The criticality of CrowdStrike as a security platform tends to, I think, outweigh some of those issues in the sense of customers can’t afford to just turn them off and not renew because of one incident. They’re just too tied into the ecosystem,” Walsh tells Yahoo Finance. “They’re too critical of a tool and what kind of within the overall stack. So I think those conversations certainly have the potential to emerge…”

Josh Lipton and Julie Hyman
Fri, Jul 19, 2024, 1:19 PM MST

Comments like this are foolish, of course you can change software providers..Comments like this are like the early 90’s when Symantec and McAfee dominated the AV industry (Techs comments back then were we will never get fired if we use the 2 products mentioned above, but we all managed to survive with better products that did not peg the CPU’s)

Defused Cyber Deception Researcher and Founder Simo Kohonen joins to discuss the implications for CrowdStrike and the broader cybersecurity landscape.

Kohonen explains that CrowdStrike “pushed out a faulty update” that, when installed, “broke everything,” affecting industries globally. He emphasizes CrowdStrike’s reputation as the “top number one cybersecurity company in the world” and notes that their extensive customer base amplifies the scale of this issue. While the issue is fixable, he cautions that the timeline for resolving this problem may vary.

Simo Kohonen – Aalto University | LinkedIn
Sep 2021 – Present 2 years 7 months. Helsinki Metropolitan Area. Key contributor in the technology-related major fundraising at the Aalto University. Managing key accounts in a client and data driven manner utilizing the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system. Identifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding

Crowdstrike EULA (https://www.crowdstrike.com/terms-conditions/)
8.5 No Guarantee. CUSTOMER ACKNOWLEDGES, UNDERSTANDS, AND AGREES THAT CROWDSTRIKE DOES NOT GUARANTEE OR WARRANT THAT IT WILL FIND, LOCATE, OR DISCOVER ALL OF CUSTOMER’S OR ITS AFFILIATES’ SYSTEM THREATS, VULNERABILITIES, MALWARE, AND MALICIOUS SOFTWARE, AND CUSTOMER AND ITS AFFILIATES WILL NOT HOLD CROWDSTRIKE RESPONSIBLE THEREFOR.

My opinion every major provider write EULA’s like this..They take your money and say sorry..right now Crowd Strke does not have enough employees to remove the file that broke it, the firms that use Crowdstrike also do not have enough techs to to fix all systems affected, including Chase .

Personally I would like to see a law firm create a class action law suit, for loss’s incurred..

I do know about this matter I recommended a RMM soultion to one of my partners..The firms  development team pushed the wrong patch out in a  update that deleted over 4000 endpoints of one of  the largest and most reliable AV solutions back then and even today. Personally my firm and along with myself restored all endpoints, I did drop the RMM when they basically said sorry but would not pay for costs to restore, this still happens to be a client today still..its all about service.

I wish you all luck to get your services restored, hire a qualified tech

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishing Simulation & Cyber Security Training
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count” 40 years in the AV business.

After being fined for fraudulent ads, Meta tries to discredit researchers

Updated on: June 14, 2024 6:47 AM Paulina Okunytė Journalist (Good Job)

The legal action was based on NetLab’s findings, which indicated that Meta did not take down 1817 paid ads containing scams.

The fraudulent ads used the name of a popular government program to assist indebted individuals, called Desenrola, and kept running even after months after official notification.

To all MSP and Tech’s do what you can to block Facebook / Meta just for security purposes

Meta has received backlash after trying to discredit researchers who identified fraudulent ads on its platforms as “unable to produce technical evidence.”

Meta’s lawyers called researchers from NetLab, a research group affiliated with one of Brazil’s top universities – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) – “biased” and “unable to produce technical evidence.”

The accusation comes as part of the company’s defense in an ongoing case in Brazil. The country’s federal watchdog for consumer issues, Senacon, sued the tech giant in November 2023 for failures in ad moderation on the company’s main platforms, Facebook and Instagram.

The legal action was based on NetLab’s findings, which indicated that Meta did not take down 1817 paid ads containing scams.

The fraudulent ads used the name of a popular government program to assist indebted individuals, called Desenrola, and kept running even after months after official notification.

The formal document, obtained by journalists at Brazilian tech news outlet Nucleo, describes Netlab as a “partial third party” and questions its ability for neutrality.
Accusation of bias

Meta accused NetLab’s report of containing “a series of imperfections, biased responses, distorted conclusions, and reliability that is, at best, dubious.”

However, the company failed to specify what the alleged errors were.

“Netlab has an institutional political opinion that is manifestly opposed to Facebook Brazil [Meta’s legal name in Brazil],” the company argued.

“And not only that: the coordinator of the laboratory herself, Professor Rose Marie Santini, has publicly expressed strong criticisms of digital platforms,” the document reads.

One of Meta’s attempts to undermine the group is to argue that NetLab’s report lacked links to each of the ads it identified as fraudulent.

Apparently, the researchers shared the URLs and IDs of each ad with Nucleo reporters.

“This is a strategy to make us work for them, given that they have already made money from an ad, and this request transfers to us the responsibility of cleaning up their platform,” said Santini to Nucleo.
Meta condemned by activists

Meta’s actions have been condemned by activists. 70 organizations, research centers, digital rights watchdogs, and think tanks have signed a note of repudiation.

“This is an attack on scientific research work and attempts to intimidate researchers who are carrying out excellent work in the production of knowledge based on empirical analyses that have been fundamental in qualifying the public debate on platform accountability,” they stated in the note.

Microsoft 365 suite status changed to WARN

warn status (MspPortalPartners Status Page)

Microsoft 365 suite is now WARN
Previous status was UP
Users’ file related operations may fail within various Microsoft 356 services
Title: Users’ file related operations may fail within various Microsoft 356 services User impact: Users’ file related operations may fail within various Microsoft 356 services. More info: The impacted scenarios may include but not are limited to the following: -Android and iOS users may be unable to preview Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint files within the Microsoft Teams mobile app -Users may be unable to open .zip downloads in Microsoft Teams. -Users may be unable to view PDF and image files shared with download disabled in Microsoft Teams desktop client and Microsoft Teams on the web. OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online: -Users may be unable to view image files and HTML files in OneDrive for Business app and OneDrive for Business on the web. – Users may be unable to download folders from SharePoint Online. – Additionally users may experience issues with image viewing, video streaming, and multi-file download in SharePoint Online. – Users may be unable to play videos in Microsoft Stream Current status: We’re observing improvements in the affected functionalities after we reverted the impacting update, and we’re continuing to monitor for a period to ensure these problems are comprehensively resolved for all users. Scope of impact: Users who are attempting to perform file-related operations within various Microsoft 365 services may be impacted. Start time: Thursday, June 13, 2024, at 12:30 AM UTC Root cause: A deployment for one of our file operation services is causing impact. Next update by: Thursday, June 13, 2024, at 10:00 AM UTC

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishing Simulation & Cyber Security Training
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

Bitdefender loaded a bad file so in most case if you look at this it will of a issue

To all my partners login to Gravity Zone and review but it is easier to look at  say multiple desktops (Show)

The error is this: ( even though  you are a partner please take the time to do random check on your clients IMPORTANT) I have already reported it to Romania

Update Process Failed because the endpoint could not resolve the update server address Please contact your system administrator. Error-1002

For at least the time being go to the dashboard and grab all the systems on line and run a UPDATE task that will for the time being bring it back on line and clean.

One last thing Bitdefender uses O365 and MailChimp..in the case if you are as concerned about security as myself I use GEO blocking globally except the US please start using to protect your clients, for the time being until Bitdefender fixs the issue mail will at best be random but your client will be protected.

In my mail filter product we can activate for you.

If you are struggling with your RMMs system lack of support come on board as a partner

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President

Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishing Simulation & Cyber Security Training

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

 

Top 5 Most Dangerous Cyber Threats in 2024 Must Read article !!

SANS Institute experts weigh in on the top threat vectors faced by enterprises and the public at large.

Ericka Chickowski, Contributing Writer May 14, 2024

RSA CONFERENCE 2024 – San Francisco – Only five months into 2024, and the year has been a busy one for cybersecurity practitioners, with multiyear supply chain attacks, nation-state actors exploiting multiple vulnerabilities in network gateways and edge devices, and multiple ransomware incidents against large healthcare entities. What’s ahead for the rest of year?

At last week’s RSA Conference, Ed Skoudis, president of the SANS Technology Institute, convened his annual panel of SANS Institute instructors and fellows to dig into topics that should be top of mind for cyber defenders for the remaining months of the year.

Security Impact of Technical Debt

The security cracks left behind by technical debt may not sound like a pressing new threat, but according to Dr. Johannes Ullrich, dean of research for SANS Technology Institute, the enterprise software stack is at an inflection point for cascading problems. What’s more, “It affects more and more not only just our enterprise applications, but also our security stack,” he said.

Technical debt is the accumulation of work in software engineering or system design that’s left undone or put off until tomorrow for the sake of getting a minimum viable product up and running today. The debt may be accrued intentionally to optimize for speed or cost reasons, or it could build up unintentionally due to immature software engineering practices. Either way, it tends to raise a ton of cybersecurity risks as the debt grows.

And according to Ullrich, the rising accrual of technical debt combined with the growing complexity of the software supply chain is increasing the profile of this threat vector.

“Even as a developer myself, it is very easy to say, ‘Hey, this new library doesn’t really have any new features and doesn’t fix any security vulnerabilities, so I’m not going to apply that update,” he says. “The problem is that five years from now, after you skip 10 to 15 different incremental updates, then the big security vulnerability hits that library and now you have to work through all of these little quirks that have added up over the years so you can fix it.”

Article (https://www.darkreading.com/cyber-risk/top-5-most-dangerous-cyber-threats-in-2024?_mc=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20240516&cid=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20240516&sp_aid=123517&elq_cid=34964379&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_cid=53519)

In my world of tech support it is happening with 98% of all manufacturers today Microsoft being the leader in my opinion.

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishing Simulation & Cyber Security Training
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

Action required: 90-day notice – Barracuda DMARC policy Must Read Please

Barracuda Networks, Inc. is taking steps to harden our email-sending domains by moving our DMARC policy into an enforcement configuration. 
 
This important measure will prevent the potential threat of an adversary looking to impersonate Barracuda. As we implement this control, we advise all our customers to change their notification email address and the SMTP server setting on their Barracuda appliance(s) to use their domain/email address instead of ‘barracuda.com‘. Doing this will ensure your email provider accepts your notification emails from your Barracuda appliance.  
 
Please note this is a 90-day notice that we plan to enforce our DMARC policy. If you have not moved to the new product version that supports this change by July 19, 2024, your product (see list below) will no longer be supported. 
 
Below are articles to assist in making these changes to your Barracuda appliances where Barracuda DMARC policy will be enforced, please click on the one(s) that are relevant to you or locate them on Barracuda Campus by searching for “DMARC.”  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Please note, if you have not moved to the new version by July 19, 2024 your product will no longer be supported.  

 
We greatly appreciate your cooperation in this matter to improve your security posture and reduce potential email impersonation attacks. 
 
If you have questions or need assistance, please reach out to the support team at support@barracuda.com.

 
 
Thank you! 
 
TheBarracudaTeam

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President

Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishing Simulation & Cyber Security Training

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

Cybercriminals pose as LastPass staff to hack password vaults

Cybercriminals pose as LastPass staff to hack password vaults

If you are not Off Last Pass Yet get off it..you should be Try Bitwarden
By Bill Toulas April 18, 2024 10:56 AM

LastPass is warning of a malicious campaign targeting its users with the CryptoChameleon phishing kit that is associated with cryptocurrency theft.

CryptoChameleon is an advanced phishing kit that was spotted earlier this year, targeting Federal Communications Commission (FCC) employees using custom-crafted Okta single sign-on (SSO) pages.

According to researchers at mobile security company Lookout, campaigns using this phishing kit also targeted cryptocurrency platforms Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini, using pages that impersonated Okta, Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, Twitter, Yahoo, and AOL.

During its investigations, LastPass discovered that its service was recently added to the CryptoChameleon kit, and a phishing site was hosted at at the “help-lastpass[.]com” domain.

The attacker combines multiple social engineering techniques that involve contacting the potential victim (voice phishing) and pretending to be a LastPass employee trying to help with securing the account following unauthorized access.

Below are the tactics LastPass observed in this campaign:

Victims receive a call from an 888 number claiming unauthorized access to their LastPass account and are prompted to allow or block the access by pressing “1” or “2”.

If they choose to block the access, they’re told they will get a follow-up call to resolve the issue.

A second call comes from a spoofed number, where the caller, posing as a LastPass employee, sends a phishing email from “support@lastpass” with a link to the fake LastPass site.

Entering the master password on this site allows the attacker to change account settings and lock out the legitimate user.

The malicious website is now offline but it is very likely that other campaigns will follow and threat actors will rely on new domains.

Users of the popular password management service are recommended to beware of suspicious phone calls, messages, or emails claiming to come from LastPass and urging immediate action.

Some indicators of suspicious communication from this campaign include emails with the subject “We’re here for you” and the use of a shortened URL service for links in the message. Users should report these attempts to LastPass at abuse@lastpass.com.

Regardless of the sevice, the master password should not be shared with anyone since it is the key to all your sensitive information.

Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cybercriminals-pose-as-lastpass-staff-to-hack-password-vaults/)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishing Simulation & Cyber Security Training
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

Cisco Duo warns third-party data breach exposed SMS MFA logs

Plus Bonus Article must read today

By Bill Toulas April 15, 2024 10:52 AM

Cisco Duo’s security team warns that hackers stole some customers’ VoIP and SMS logs for multi-factor authentication (MFA) messages in a cyberattack on their telephony provider.

Cisco Duo is a multi-factor authentication and Single Sign-On service used by corporations to provide secure access to internal networks and corporate applications.

Duo’s homepage reports that it serves 100,000 customers and handles over a billion authentications monthly, with over 10,000,000 downloads on Google Play.

In emails sent to customers, Cisco Duo says an unnamed provider who handles the company’s SMS and VOIP multi-factor authentication (MFA) messages was compromised on April 1, 2024.

The notice explains that a threat actor obtained employee credentials through a phishing attack and then used those credentials to gain access to the telephony provider’s systems.

The intruder then downloaded SMS and VoIP MFA message logs associated with specific Duo accounts between March 1, 2024, and March 31, 2024.

“We are writing to inform you of an incident involving one of our Duo telephony suppliers (the “Provider”) that Duo uses to send multifactor authentication (MFA) messages via SMS and VOIP to its customers,” reads the notice sent to impacted customers.

“Cisco is actively working with the Provider to investigate and address the incident. While the investigation is ongoing, the following is a summary of the incident based on what we have learned to date.”

The provider confirmed that the threat actor did not access any contents of the messages or use their access to send messages to customers.

However, the stolen message logs do contain data that could be used in targeted phishing attacks to gain access to sensitive information, such as corporate credentials.

The data contained in these logs includes an employee’s:

Phone number
Carrier
Location data
Date
Time
Message type

When the impacted supplier discovered the breach, they invalidated the compromised credentials, analyzed activity logs, and notified Cisco accordingly. Additional security measures were also implemented to prevent similar incidents in the future.

The vendor provided Cisco Duo with all of the exposed message logs, which can be requested by emailing msp@duo.com to help better understand the scope of the breach, its impact, and the appropriate defense

strategy to take.

Cisco also warns customers impacted by this breach to be vigilant against potential SMS phishing or social engineering attacks using the stolen information.

“Because the threat actor obtained access to the message logs through a successful social engineering attack on the Provider, please contact your customers with affected users whose phone numbers were contained in the message logs to notify them, without undue delay, of this event and to advise them to be vigilant and report any suspected social engineering attacks to the relevant incident response team or other designated point of contact for such matters,” concludes the notification from Cisco’s Data Privacy and Incident Response Team.

“Please also consider educating your users on the risks posed by social engineering attacks and investigating any suspicious activity.”

The FBI warned last year that threat actors were increasingly using SMS phishing and voice calls in social engineering attacks to breach corporate networks.

In 2022, Uber was breached after a threat actor performed an MFA fatigue attack on an employee and then contacted them on WhatsApp via their phone numbers, pretending to be IT help desk personnel. This eventually led to the target allowing the hackers to log into the account and gain access to Uber’s systems.

Cisco has not disclosed the supplier’s name and the number of customers impacted by this incident. BleepingComputer contacted Cisco with further questions but a reply was not immediately available.
Related Articles:

Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cisco-duo-warns-third-party-data-breach-exposed-sms-mfa-logs/)

Article a Must Read ( https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cisco-warns-of-large-scale-brute-force-attacks-against-vpn-services/) Cisco warns of large-scale brute-force attacks against Most VPN services

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/PresidentSecurity

Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishing Simulation & Cyber Security Training

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count

 

Bitdefender Changes access to Power user

Bitdefender recently made major changes to the Power User capability, and the main driver for this change is security. The 3rd party technology we use for PowerUser could pose some security risks in the future, and we had to act quickly to mitigate those risks. Also, the latest version of the technology is not compatible with any operating system before Windows 10, which does not fall in line with our target to offer backward compatibility.

Therefore, we’ve decided to provide a change which will let us continue PowerUser for all the supported operating systems. The new CLI will help us provide a lighter agent footprint, and much more precise control of all modules going forward.

We are currently working on adding new commands in PowerUser ComandLine to support additional actions and we plan to expend its coverage as we move forward.
Considering the feedback we recently received from some of our customers and partners, we also plan to release example scripts in our documentation, and allow the use of our existing Power User capability. It will be accessible only by running the process EPPowerConsole.exe directly, and it will be limited to Windows 10 and above operating systems.

An important project we have ongoing right now is the development of a new BEST GUI, which will offer some of the Power User capabilities in the endpoint GUI.
We aim to introduce as many settings as possible going forward on this new UI and CLI. Your feedback is most welcome, as it will determine what options will be available in the upcoming BEST GUI.”

I spoke to a nice gentleman in Romaina (BD Head Quarters, and he stated it had changed to only getting to it: By following these steps Windows/program Files/Bitdefender/endpoint security/ run as admin EPPowerConsole.exe-> then put the password in to bring up the UI. A little painful but secure

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishing Simulation & Cyber Security Training
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

CISA Issues Emergency Directive 24-02: Mitigating the Significant Risk from Nation-State Compromise of Microsoft Corporate Email System

CISA Issues Emergency Directive 24-02: Mitigating the Significant Risk from Nation-State Compromise of Microsoft Corporate Email System

04/11/2024 02:15 PM EDT

Today, CISA publicly issued Emergency Directive (ED) 24-02 to address the recent campaign by Russian state-sponsored cyber actor Midnight Blizzard to exfiltrate email correspondence of Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies through a successful compromise of Microsoft corporate email accounts. This Directive rhttps://www.cisa.gov/news-events/directives/ed-24-02-mitigating-significant-risk-nation-state-compromise-microsoft-corporate-email-systemequires agencies to analyze the content of exfiltrated emails, reset compromised credentials, and take additional steps to secure privileged Microsoft Azure accounts.

While ED 24-02 requirements only apply to FCEB agencies, other organizations may also have been impacted by the exfiltration of Microsoft corporate email and are encouraged to contact their respective Microsoft account team for any additional questions or follow up. FCEB agencies and state and local government should utilize the distro MBFedResponse@Microsoft.com for any escalations and assistance with Microsoft. Regardless of direct impact, all organizations are strongly encouraged to apply stringent security measures, including strong passwords, multifactor authentication (MFA) and prohibited sharing of unprotected sensitive information via unsecure channels.

Article (https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2024/04/11/cisa-issues-emergency-directive-24-02-mitigating-significant-risk-nation-state-compromise-microsoft)

Folks be smart get off O365 they are compromised ever since they were invefected by solarwinds a leaking timebomb

2020 was a roller coaster of major, world-shaking events. We all couldn’t wait for the year to end. But just as 2020 was about to close, it pulled another fast one on us: the SolarWinds hack, one of the biggest cybersecurity breaches of the 21st century.

The SolarWinds hack was a major event not because a single company was breached, but because it triggered a much larger supply chain incident that affected thousands of organizations, including the U.S. government.

Suggestion at least use our malware protection products (Like Mail Protection to start off with)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishline Training
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”