Charges against the ransomware gang member included damage to computers, conspiracy to commit fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Source: Ozrimoz via Shutterstock

Ukrainian national Yaroslav Vasinskyi, affiliate of the REvil ransomware-as-a-service group, was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to an 11-count indictment.

The charges against Vasinskyi, also known as Rabotnik, involved conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and damage to protected computers. According to court documents, he conducted thousands of ransomware attacks using the Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware variants.

"Yaroslav Vasinskyi and his co-conspirators hacked into thousands of computers around the world and encrypted them with ransomware," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "Then they demanded over $700 million in ransom payments and threatened to publicly disclose victims' data if they refused to pay."

Alongside his sentencing, Vasinskyi has been ordered to pay roughly $16 million in restitution for the role he played in over 2,500 ransomware attacks — a fraction of the $700 million in ransom payments that was demanded of his victims.

**About the Author(s)**

REvil Affiliate Off to Jail for Multimillion-Dollar Ransomware Scheme

Patch now: Cyberattackers are exploiting CVE-2023-7028 (CVSS 10) to take over and lock users out of GitLab accounts, steal source code, and more.

Source: simon de glanville via Alamy Stock Photo

A critical security vulnerability in GitLab is under active attack, according to CISA. It allows bad actors to send password reset emails for any account to an email address of their choice, thus paving the way for account takeover.

"This will allow attackers to reset the password just as if they were a user that had legitimately forgotten theirs," says Erich Kron, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4. "From there, the account would belong to the bad actors."

Further, Kron warned that if adversaries choose to change the legitimate associated email address for a GitLab account they've infiltrated, they could then keep the rightful account owner from being able to log in or use the password recovery function to change it back.

CISA added the vulnerability, CVE-2023-7028, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog as a "GitLab Community and Enterprise Editions Improper Access Control Vulnerability." The agency noted that the bug is maximum severity with a 10 out of 10 CVSS vulnerability-severity score, and is requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to remediate FCEB networks against the active threat.

Sajeeb Lohani, senior director of cybersecurity at Bugcrowd, said there are publicly available exploits for the bug as well, so defenders shouldn't sit on this one.

"Since the exploit itself is quite simple to pull off, the bar of entry for the exploit is low, implying less skilled hackers will also be able to exploit this issue," he says. "In simple terms, this is an issue you want to patch promptly."

**CVE-2023-7028: Risk of Proprietary Data, Code Theft**

David Brumley, cybersecurity professor at Carnegie Mellon and CEO of ForAllSecure, explains that the stakes are high for organizations because GitLab stores source code and proprietary data.

"There's always the risk of an attacker injecting malicious code into the supply chain as well, but that requires the changes not being flagged elsewhere," he explains. "While data exfiltration typically won't run up against other checks, the point of a source control platform is that you can easily transfer code in and out of it to local machines."

He recommended that organizations that manage their own GitLab deployments should ensure they have a plan to upgrade to a patched version if they haven't already done so.

"If that can't be done immediately, then mitigations should be employed," he says. "You need to ensure that you have regular password rotation or use a separate identity provider for authentication."

Larger organizations may want to also consider tools that can identify anomalous activity based on user actions, which could flag compromised accounts for quarantine.

**MFA, Zero Trust Are Effective Counters**

Defending against these types of attacks goes back to security basics. For instance, Kron suggests that one of the most effective ways to counter attacks such as unauthorized password changes is the use of multifactor authentication (MFA), which attackers keep trying to circumvent.

He added that while MFA is not unhackable, it can add enough complexity to the account takeover process that the bad actors may fail.

"Even if they could reset your password, they will not be able to log in without the second factor," he says. "This could prevent them from changing the recovery email address, making them unable to lock the rightful account owner out."

Patrick Tiquet, vice president of security and architecture at Keeper Security, meanwhile notes the most effective method to prevent account-based cyberattacks is to invest in a zero-trust and zero-knowledge cybersecurity architecture that will limit, if not altogether prevent, a bad actor's access.

He also says a privileged access management (PAM) solution is imperative for IT administrators and security personnel to manage and secure privileged credentials and ensure least-privilege access.

"Additionally, each organization's patch management strategy needs to have a fast track for critical vulnerabilities with high possible severities — like this one — to ensure they can immediately take action," Tiquet says.

**About the Author(s)**

Nathan Eddy is a freelance journalist and award-winning documentary filmmaker specializing in IT security, autonomous vehicle technology, customer experience technology, and architecture and urban planning. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Nathan currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

Critical GitLab Bug Under Exploit Enables Account Takeover, CISA Warns

If CEOs want to prevent their firm from being the next victim of a high-profile deepfake scam, they need to double cybersecurity funding immediately.

Source: Tenebroso via Alamy Stock Photo

COMMENTARY

In a recent open letter, high-profile names from across the business, academic, and scientific worlds called for governments to intensify their regulation of deepfakes.

While their aims are admirable, their efforts are misplaced — it's innovation, not regulation, that will shore up our defenses against the deepfake threat. 

The letter, titled "Disrupting the Deepfake Supply Chain," was signed by prominent thinkers, including Stephen Pinker, computer scientist Joy Buolamwini, US politician Andrew Yang, and the "godfather" of AI, Yoshua Bengio.

Specifically, the letter called for increased criminalization of deepfakes, the establishment of specific criminal penalties, and liability for software developers and distributors for the use of their products in deepfakes. 

The letter correctly identifies the symptoms. Deepfakes are proliferating at a rapid rate — more than 900% annually, according to The World Economic Forum. This is ratcheting up the threat level across society.

Deepfakes are already an established weapon in the hacker arsenal. One finance worker recently paid $25 million to malicious actors after they used a deepfake of the employee's CFO in a video conference call. This should serve as a warning shot across the bow for the corporate world, and the open letter is correct to raise the alarm about the relative lack of action.

However, delegating responsibility to governments will only leave corporations more exposed. CEOs cannot afford to sit back and rely on regulators to stem the flow of deepfakes. They must take action and build their own defenses as soon as possible — and they are already starting from behind. Catching up will mean doubling their investment in innovative technologies that can counteract deepfakes.

**Stone Age Policies**

But why aren't governments up to the task themselves?

Most governments' cybersecurity departments and policies are in the Stone Age compared with these hackers. By the time legislation is drawn up, debated, and rolled out, it's often already antiquated and behind the pace of technological development. 

Furthermore, relying on reactive regulation in one government also means trusting all governments to do the same. No matter how punitive the legislation in one country, hackers in another country won't worry about the penalties, so nations will have to work together to negate the threat of deepfakes. But right now, hoping the Chinese or Russian states will prevent hackers from disrupting business in the West is nothing short of naive. 

CEOs and senior management must step up to the challenge and take responsibility for ensuring that they aren't the next victim of a deepfake scam.

Fortunately, management has several technologies available that can be rolled out to shore up their deepfake defenses, including advanced authentication, detection AI, and content watermarking. 

CEOs can integrate enhanced authentication standards to insulate their firms from deepfake scams. Two-factor or multifactor authentication systems require users to provide additional verification beyond a password, adding information that deepfake scammers will need to access sensitive information.

**Fighting Deepfakes With AI**

Management must also deploy AI in the fight against deepfakes. AI tools can analyze media files for anomalies and inconsistencies that are evidence of tampering. They can also analyze the subjects of these files, such as facial expressions and vocal patterns, and then flag non-natural inconsistencies that the human eye may miss. They can even compare deepfakes against genuine employee biometric data to identify fake representations of company employees.

Another option available to corporations is content watermarking, which embeds invisible, unique identifiers into official company media files. This can be used to verify the authenticity and origin of media content that employees come into contact with. 

These are just some of the many digital tools that management can use to insulate themselves from deepfake scammers and hackers. But they come at a cost.

Currently, cybersecurity funding lags far behind the scale of the threat that deepfakes pose. As with the finance worker above, company funds are at risk. Deepfake scams could also be used to access sensitive IP and trade secrets. Deepfakes of employees can also damage a firm's reputation, harming investor and consumer confidence. 

Even in the face of these ominous threats, firms continue to woefully underfund cybersecurity. The recent Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index highlights how only 3% of organizations have the "mature" level of readiness needed to be resilient against cyber threats. 

So, if CEOs want to prevent their firm from being the next victim of a high-profile deepfake scam, they need to double cybersecurity funding immediately. Relying on the government to do this for them only increases their exposure to the risk that deepfakes pose. With healthier financing, corporations can roll out authentication tools, AI identification systems, and content watermarking to properly insulate themselves from the deepfake threat. 

**About the Author(s)**

Founder & CEO, artius.iD

Michael Marcotte is one of the world’s pre-eminent experts in digital identity, cybersecurity, and business intelligence technology. He joined EchoStar, the multibillion-dollar satellite communications firm, in 2006, and was Global CIO, Global CDO, and president (Hughes Cloud Services). He was one of the very first people to serve as chief digital officer of a major international corporation. Michael left EchoStar in 2014 and currently is the founder and CEO of digital authentication firm artius.iD. He has applied his expertise at a range of firms in technology, cybersecurity, and venture capital. He is also co-founder of the National Cybersecurity Center (NCC) and was founder and chairman of the NCC's Rapid Response Center Board. He has been a senior adviser for several heads of state and US senators.

Innovation, Not Regulation, Will Protect Corporations From Deepfakes

The AI security startup's platform will allow organizations to define appropriate AI usage and enforce security policies.

Source: Ole CNX via Shutterstock

The past two years have seen unprecedented interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI), with companies across all industries integrating capabilities into their products and services. Organizations are adopting these tools to work faster and more efficiently. However, these AI applications also pose security challenges for organizations, with heightened risks of leaks of customer data and intellectual property. They also expand organizations' attack surface, potentially exposing them to malicious data injection and other AI-driven attacks.

This evolving threat landscape sets the stage for Apex, an AI security company that came out of stealth yesterday. Apex's security platform provides organizations with visibility of their AI activities. Organizations can define what AI usage should look like within their environments and enforce security policies accordingly. The platform can detect violations to company policies, as well as detect and respond to attacks, the company said.

The platform also includes a secure portal through which users can interact securely with the organization's AI tools. Apex works with public generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini, copilots such as the one from Microsoft, and the organization's own custom AI applications.

Founded in 2023, Apex currently has a few trials with Fortune 500 companies, the company told Reuters. Apex's co-founders are Matan Derman (CEO) and Tomer Avni (CPO).

As part of the launch, Apex raised $7 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and angel investors, including Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. The company plans to use seed funding for product development, grow its team, and go-to-market activities.

**About the Author(s)**

New AI Security Startup Apex Secures AI Models, Apps

The startup says its SaaS platform helps organizations detect and recover from ransomware attacks faster than "traditional" methods.

Source: Ihor Sveitukha via Alamy Stock Photo

The number of ransomware and associated extortion attacks is growing, with reports nearly every day about damage inflicted on organizations. These attacks disrupt business operations and result in significant downtime. In some cases, data is stolen. Educational institutions, retail and healthcare entities, and critical infrastructure organizations have all been targeted over the past few months.

Mimic, which came out of stealth today, is a ransomware defense company that offers a way for organizations to detect, deflect, and recover from ransomware attacks. The company says its software-as-a-service platform is capable of restoring an organization's environment and data back to an uninfected state within 24 hours without needing to pay a ransom.

Details about the technology are sparse, but the company has the support of several well-known names, including Ted Schlein, general partner at Ballistic Ventures, who joined the board of directors; and Marie Mouchet, former CIO of Colonial Pipeline, who joined the advisory board.

Mimic's platform works "in concert" with a customer's existing security controls, said Mimic CEO Derek Smith in a statement. Smith was formerly CEO of Shape Security, a Web and mobile application security company that was acquired by F5 in 2019 for $1 billion. 

As part of the launch, Mimic raised $27 million in seed funding from Ballistic Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Team8, Wing Venture Capital, and Shield Capital. The company said Apex Group, a financial services provider, is currently using the platform.

**About the Author(s)**

Mimic Launches With New Ransomware Defense Platform

Microsoft has uncovered a common vulnerability pattern in several apps allowing code execution; at least four of the apps have more than 500 million installations each; and one, Xiaomi's File Manager, has at least 1 billion installations.

Source: rafapress via Shutterstock

Researchers from Microsoft recently discovered many Android applications — including at least four with more than 500 million installations each — to be vulnerable to remote-code execution attacks, token theft, and other issues because of a common security weakness.

Microsoft informed Google's Android security research team of the problem and Google has published new guidance for Android app developers on how to recognize and remediate the issue.

**Billions of Installations at Risk of Compromise**

Microsoft has also shared its findings with vendors of affected Android apps on Google's Play store. Among them were Xiaomi Inc.'s File Manager product, which has more than 1 billion installations, and WPS Office with some 500 million downloads.

Microsoft said vendors of both products have already fixed the issue. But it believes there are more apps out there that are fallible to exploit and compromise because of the same security weakness. "We anticipate that the vulnerability pattern could be found in other applications," Microsoft's threat intelligence team said, in a blog post this week. "We're sharing this research so developers and publishers can check their apps for similar issues, fix as appropriate, and prevent introducing such vulnerabilities into new apps or releases."

The issue that Microsoft discovered affects Android applications that share files with other applications. To facilitate the sharing in a secure manner, Android implements a so-called "content provider" feature that basically acts as an interface for managing and exposing an app's data to other installed applications on a device, Microsoft said. An app that needs to share its files — or a file provider in Android speak — declares the specific paths that other apps can use to get to the data. File providers also include an identifying feature that other apps can use as an address to find them on a system.

**Blind Trust & Lack of Content Validation**

"This content provider-based model provides a well-defined file-sharing mechanism, enabling a serving application to share its files with other applications in a secure manner with fine-grained control," Microsoft said. However, in many cases when an Android app receives a file from another app, it does not validate the content. "Most concerning, it uses the filename provided by the serving application to cache the received file within the consuming application's internal data directory."

This gives attackers an opening to create a rogue app that can send a file with a malicious filename directly to a receiving app — or file share target — without the user's knowledge or approval, Microsoft said. Typical file share targets include email clients, messaging apps, networking apps, browsers, and file editors. When a share target receives a malicious filename, it uses the filename to initialize the file and trigger a process that could end with the app getting compromised, Microsoft said.

The potential impact will vary depending on an Android application's implementation specifics. In some cases, an attacker could use a malicious app to overwrite a receiving app's settings and cause it to communicate with an attacker-controlled server, or get it to share the user's authentication tokens and other data. In other situations, a malicious application could overwrite malicious code into a receiving app's native library to enable arbitrary code execution. "Since the rogue app controls the name as well as the content of the file, by blindly trusting this input, a share target may overwrite critical files in its private data space, which may lead to serious consequences," Microsoft said.

Both Microsoft and Google have provided tips to developers on how to avoid the issue. End users, meanwhile, can mitigate the risk by ensuring their Android apps are up to date and by only installing apps from trusted sources.

**About the Author(s)**

Jai Vijayan is a seasoned technology reporter with over 20 years of experience in IT trade journalism. He was most recently a Senior Editor at Computerworld, where he covered information security and data privacy issues for the publication. Over the course of his 20-year career at Computerworld, Jai also covered a variety of other technology topics, including big data, Hadoop, Internet of Things, e-voting, and data analytics. Prior to Computerworld, Jai covered technology issues for The Economic Times in Bangalore, India. Jai has a Master's degree in Statistics and lives in Naperville, Ill.

Billions of Android Devices Open to 'Dirty Stream' Attack

Organizations can go a long way toward preventing spoofing attacks by changing one basic parameter in their DNS settings.

Source: Panther Media GmbH via Alamy Stock Photo

North Korean hackers are taking advantage of weak DMARC configurations to impersonate organizations in phishing attacks against individuals of strategic significance to the Kim Jong Un regime.

DMARC, short for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance, is a security protocol for preventing email-based attacks. Unlike most security solutions, however, which potential victims implement for themselves, DMARC policies are set by email senders. In part for this reason, it can be easily overlooked.

On Thursday, the FBI and National Security Agency released a joint cybersecurity advisory detailing how the APT Kimsuky (aka APT 43, Thallium) is taking advantage. For some time now, it has been masquerading as organizations that have weak or nonexistent DMARC policies in convincing spear phishing emails.

"This is a highly effective new tool in the arsenal of one of the more prolific social engineering threat groups that Mandiant tracks," Gary Freas, Mandiant senior analyst with Google Cloud, said in an email. "Organizations in a variety of industries around the world are at risk of leaving themselves unnecessarily exposed. Proper DMARC configuration, in conjunction with proper management of SPF/DKIM, is low-hanging fruit to deliver high-impact prevention of phishing and spoofing of an organization."

**The Difference DMARC Makes**

Kimsuky's primary objective is to steal valuable intelligence — regarding geopolitical events, other nations' foreign policy strategies, and more — for the Kim regime. To do that, it aims cyberattacks at journalists, think tanks, government organizations, and the like.

To add legitimacy to these attacks, it often impersonates individuals from trusted organizations like these in highly targeted emails. Such emails are extra convincing when Kimsuky gains access to their puppet's legitimate account or domain (often through a separate spear phishing attack) to send emails on their behalf.

A Kimsuky phishing email sent from late 2023 to early 2024. Source: FBI/NSA

This is what DMARC is designed to prevent. It combines two authentication mechanisms: the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), which checks that a sender's IP address is authorized to send emails from their specified domain, and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), which uses public key cryptography for anti-tampering. Domain owners can set a DMARC record in their domain name system (DNS) settings to determine what happens should an email-en-route fail one of these checks: either block it (p=reject), treat it with suspicion (p=quarantine), or do nothing (p=none).

The FBI-NSA joint advisory suggests organizations favor p=reject or p=quarantine to prevent threat actors like Kimsuky from sending emails from their domains.

"DMARC hygiene is critical," says Jeremy Fuchs, Harmony Email analyst at Check Point. "It's a fantastic way to ensure that when someone gets an email from your company, it’s actually from your company. It can be a big project, though, to ensure p=reject state, especially when you have many domains. This is why reporting, monitoring, and consistent hygiene is key.

"DMARC is not a silver bullet, as hackers have plenty of ways to spoof, but it can be a good starting point."

**About the Author(s)**

Nate Nelson is a freelance writer based in New York City. Formerly a reporter at Threatpost, he contributes to a number of cybersecurity blogs and podcasts. He writes "Malicious Life" -- an award-winning Top 20 tech podcast on Apple and Spotify -- and hosts every other episode, featuring interviews with leading voices in security. He also co-hosts "The Industrial Security Podcast," the most popular show in its field.

DPRK's Kimsuky APT Abuses Weak DMARC Policies, Feds Warn

Actual legislation is a long shot and a decade away, but policy experts are looking to jump-start the conversation around greater legal liability for insecure software products.

Source: Nick Lylak via Alamy Stock Photo

While legal legwork is already in progress to hold software vendors liable for delivering insecure products, actual laws and penalties are at least a decade away, says one policy expert who'll be speaking at next week's RSA Conference.

Greater accountability for insecure software vendors has the support of the Biden White House. However, licensing and contract protections have shielded companies whose vulnerable products have cost customers millions, according to James Dempsey, senior policy adviser/technology and governance lecturer, Stanford Program on Geopolitics/UC Berkeley Law School.

Dempsey will moderate a detailed discussion of proposed legal frameworks for software liability at this year's RSA, giving vendors a glimpse at the liability landscape. He'll be joined by Nick Leiserson, assistant national cyber director, cyber policy and programs, Office of the National Cyber Director; Bruce Schneier, security technologist, researcher, and lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School; and Chinmayi Sharma, associate professor, Fordham Law School.

"Right now, almost all software developers have language in their licenses or other contracts or terms of service in which they disavow any liability for any flaws in their products," Dempsey explains.

He uses the example of the Microsoft license on his own laptop to illustrate.

"For example, the Microsoft license for the operating system on my laptop says: 'You may not under this limited warranty, under any other part of this agreement, or under any theory, recover any damages or other remedy, including lost profits or direct, consequential, special, indirect, or incidental damages,'" Dempsey tells Dark Reading. "The damage exclusions and remedy limitations in this agreement apply even if Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages."

That's how vendors have been evading legal liability for their customer's damages, and in some cases, collecting cyber insurance payouts instead.

Progress Software, whose vulnerable MOVEit file transfer software led to the breach of more than 600 organizations and the compromise of the personal information of more than 40 million people, has so far evaded liability for its customer losses. Instead, Progress filed an 8-K form with the Securities and Exchange Commission that outlined the company's intent to collect on its full $15 million cyber-insurance policy coverage.

While there is a class-action consumer rights litigation against Progress Software for negligence and breach of contract, there are no legal protections for its customers, which in other industries could be enforced under an agreed upon legal "standard of care," according to a recent paper, "Standards for Software Liability: Focus on the Product for Liability, Focus on the Process for Safe Harbor," published by Dempsey in Lawfare. The paper outlines Dempsey's theory for the right path toward holding vendors legally liable for the cybersecurity of their products.

Okta is another software vendor that has exposed its customers to cyberattacks — and losses. September cyberattacks against Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts used Okta as an initial attack vector. Losses related to the cyberattacks at the hospitality giants racked up hundreds of millions in costs; both in lost earnings, as well as ransomware payouts.

By the end of 2023 Okta confirmed that an unauthorized user was able to gain access to data on 100% of its customers.

**Why Strong Software Developer Liability Protections Also Matter**

Holding developers liable for knowingly producing insecure tools requires carefully considered guidelines for what is a reasonable level of cybersecurity to expect from a software vendor in order to determine egregious outliers, Dempsey explained.

"Because there is general agreement that the manufacturers of software should not be made insurers of their products but rather should be liable only when a product is unreasonably secure, getting software liability right turns a lot on defining a standard of care," Dempsey's Lawfare article read.

This standard would include defects analysis already widely used in products liability law, the article added.

Dempsey also advocates a software developer "safe harbor" for hard-to-detect flaws. "For that, I would turn to a set of robust coding practices," Dempsey wrote.

Dempsey tells Dark Reading the Biden Administration realizes legislation will be necessary to achieve its goal of holding insecure software developers liable, which he adds they also understand is a long shot: "They see this as a 10-year issue."

Dempsey will moderate a detailed discussion of proposed legal framework for software liability on Monday, May 6, during RSA in San Francisco at 8:30 a.m. PT, giving vendors a glimpse at the liability landscape to come.

Software Security: Too Little Vendor Accountability, Experts Say

Two years after a warrant went out for his arrest, Aleksanteri Kivimäki finally has been found guilty of thousands of counts of aggravated attempted blackmail, among other charges.

Source: Taina Sohlman via Alamy Stock Photo

Aleksanteri Kivimäki, a Finnish national, has been sentenced to six years and three months in prison, after stealing thousands of patient records from a psychotherapy clinic and using them to blackmail their owners.

A judge in the district court of Länsi-Uusimaa, Finland, sentenced Kivimäki, 26, on April 30 after finding him guilty of 9,231 counts of aggravated dissemination of information infringing on individuals' private lives, and 20,745 counts of aggravated attempted blackmail. He also was found guilty on 20 counts of aggravated blackmail.

Kivimäki, known online as "Zeekill," breached Psychotherapy Center Vastaamo Oy's IT system in November of 2018. It was after this that sensitive information of the clinic's patients started to be posted online. Kivimäki would demand a ransom of €200 ($213) in order not to leak targets' data, upping the payment to €500 ($534) if the ransom wasn't paid in 24 hours. 

Kivimäki ultimately caused such a ruckus that Finland's crime figures reportedly rose drastically, to more than double the average rate.

A warrant for Kivimäki went out in October of 2022, and he was arrested last year in France. 

In his trial, the court found he was the partial owner of a data center that housed the server used to commit the crimes he was charged with. The encryption key and IP address he used were also discovered.

The district court stated: "Kivimäki's guilt was also supported by the fact that he had published messages related to the data breach and extortion on the forum Ylilauda under his pseudonym in a purposeful and fixed temporal connection with the extortion actions."

**About the Author(s)**

Hacker Sentenced After Years of Extorting Psychotherapy Patients

Threat actor dropped in to Dropbox Sign production environment and accessed emails, passwords, and other PII, along with APIs, OAuth, and MFA info.

Source: Lina Images via Shutterstock

Online storage service Dropbox is warning customers of a data breach by a threat actor that accessed customer credentials and authentication data of one of its cloud-based services.

The breach occurred when an unauthorized user gained access to the Dropbox Sign (formerly HelloSign) production environment, something administrators became aware of on April 24, according to a blog post published on May 1. Dropbox Sign is an online service for signing and storing contracts, nondisclosure agreements, tax forms, and other documents using legally binding e-signatures.

Specifically, the actor gained access to a Dropbox Sign automated system configuration tool, compromising a service account used to execute apps and run automated services as part of Sign's back end.

"As such, this account had privileges to take a variety of actions within Sign's production environment," the Dropbox Sign team wrote in the blog post. "The threat actor then used this access to the production environment to access our customer database."

**Customer Credentials Exposed**

Data exposed in the breach includes Dropbox Sign customer information such as emails, usernames, phone numbers, and hashed passwords. Moreover, anyone who received or signed a document through Dropbox Sign but never created an account had their email addresses and names exposed in the breach.

The threat actor also accessed data from the service itself, such as Dropbox Sign's API keys, OAuth tokens, and multifactor authentication (MFA) details, according to the post. This is all data used by third-party partners to connect to the service and offer seamless integration from their respective online services, with OAuth in particular being weaponized by threat actors for cross-platform compromise. Thus, users of other services could indirectly be affected by the breach.

Dropbox found no evidence that threat actors accessed any of the contents of customer accounts, such as documents or agreements signed through the service, nor any customer payment information. Moreover, as Dropbox Sign's infrastructure is largely separate from other Dropbox services, the company found that none of its other entities were affected by the breach.

As soon as Dropbox discovered the breach, the company brought on forensic investigators to get to the bottom of it; that investigation is ongoing. Dropbox also is in the process of reaching out to all users impacted by the incident and will provide step-by-step instructions on how to further protect their data.

**Mitigation Steps**

As an initial mitigation of the effects of the breach, Dropbox's security team reset users' passwords, logged users out of any devices they had connected to Dropbox Sign, and is coordinating the rotation of all API keys and OAuth tokens for the service. From a user perspective, all Dropbox Sign users will be asked to reset their passwords the next time they log into the service, the company said.

API customers will need to rotate their API keys by generating a new one; instructions for doing this are online. That key will then have to be configured with their individual application, along with deleting the current API key to protect their accounts, according to Dropbox.

"As an additional precaution, we'll be restricting certain functionality of API keys while we coordinate rotation," according to the post. As a result, only signature requests and signing capabilities will continue to be operational until the API key is rotated; only then will the restrictions be removed and the product continue to function as normal.

For customers who use an authenticator app along with Dropbox Sign for MFA, they should reset it by first deleting their existing entry and only then proceed with the reset, the company said. Those who use SMS for MFA don't need to take action.

Further, if someone reused their Dropbox Sign password on any other services, Dropbox recommends that password be changed and MFA be used whenever available.

Dropbox will continue an "extensive review" of the incident to understand exactly what happened, and to protect its customers against similar threats in the future, the company said, adding its willingness to help any customer who was impacted by the breach.

**About the Author(s)**

Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer, journalist, and therapeutic writing mentor with more than 25 years of professional experience. Her areas of expertise include technology, business, and culture. Elizabeth previously lived and worked as a full-time journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City; she currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal. In her free time, she enjoys surfing, hiking with her dogs, traveling, playing music, yoga, and cooking.

Source

DARKReading