Law enforcement authorities have allegedly arrested a key member of the notorious cybercrime group called Scattered Spider.
The individual, a 22-year-old man from the United Kingdom, was arrested this week in the Spanish city of Palma de Mallorca as he attempted to board a flight to Italy. The move is said to be a joint effort between the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the

Law enforcement authorities have allegedly arrested a key member of the notorious cybercrime group called Scattered Spider.

The individual, a 22-year-old man from the United Kingdom, was arrested this week in the Spanish city of Palma de Mallorca as he attempted to board a flight to Italy. The move is said to be a joint effort between the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Spanish Police.

News of the arrest was first reported by Murcia Today on June 14, 2024, with vx-underground subsequently revealing that the apprehended party is "associated with several other high profile ransomware attacks performed by Scattered Spider."

The malware research group further said the individual was a SIM swapper who operated under the alias "Tyler." SIM-swapping attacks work by calling the telecom carrier to transfer a target's phone number to a SIM under their control with the goal of intercepting their messages, including one-time passwords (OTPs), and taking control of their online accounts.

According to security journalist Brian Krebs, Tyler is believed to be a 22-year-old from Scotland named Tyler Buchanan, who goes by the name "tylerb" on Telegram channels related to SIM-swapping.

Tyler is the second member of the Scattered Spider group to be arrested after Noah Michael Urban, who was charged by the U.S. Justice Department earlier this February with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for offenses.

Scattered Spider, which also overlaps with activity tracked the monikers 0ktapus, Octo Tempest, and UNC3944, is a financially motivated threat group that's infamous for orchestrating sophisticated social engineering attacks to gain initial access to organizations. Members of the group are suspected to be part of a bigger cybercriminal gang called The Com.

Initially focused on credential harvesting and SIM swapping, the group has since adapted their tradecraft to focus on ransomware and data theft extortion, before shifting to encryptionless extortion attacks that aim to steal data from software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.

"Evidence also suggests UNC3944 has occasionally resorted to fear-mongering tactics to gain access to victim credentials," Google-owned Mandiant said. "These tactics include threats of doxxing personal information, physical harm to victims and their families, and the distribution of compromising material."

Mandiant told The Hacker News the activity associated with UNC3944 exhibits some level of similarities with another cluster tracked by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 as Muddled Libra, which has also been observed targeting SaaS applications to exfiltrate sensitive data. It, however, emphasized that they "should not be considered the 'same.'"

The names 0ktapus and Muddled Libra come from the threat actor's use of a phishing kit that's designed to steal Okta sign-in credentials and has since been put to use by several other hacking groups.

"UNC3944 has also leveraged Okta permissions abuse techniques through the self-assignment of a compromised account to every application in an Okta instance to expand the scope of intrusion beyond on-premises infrastructure to Cloud and SaaS applications," Mandiant noted.

"With this privilege escalation, the threat actor could not only abuse applications that leverage Okta for single sign-on (SSO), but also conduct internal reconnaissance through use of the Okta web portal by visually observing what application tiles were available after these role assignments."

Attack chains are characterized by the use of legitimate cloud synchronization utilities like Airbyte and Fivetran to export the data to attacker-controlled cloud storage buckets, alongside taking steps to conduct extensive reconnaissance, set up persistence through the creation of new virtual machines, and impair defenses.

Additionally, Scattered Spider has been observed making use of endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions to run commands such as whoami and quser in order to test access to the environment.

"UNC3944 continued to access Azure, CyberArk, Salesforce, and Workday and within each of these applications conducted further reconnaissance," the threat intelligence firm said. "Specifically for CyberArk, Mandiant has observed the download and use of the PowerShell module psPAS specifically to programmatically interact with an organization's CyberArk instance."

The targeting of the CyberArk Privileged Access Security (PAS) solution has also been a pattern observed in RansomHub ransomware attacks, raising the possibility that at least one member of Scattered Spider may have turned into an affiliate for the nascent ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation, according to GuidePoint Security.

The evolution of the threat actor's tactics further coincides with its active targeting of finance and insurance industries using convincing lookalike domains and login pages for credential theft.

The FBI told Reuters last month that it's laying the groundwork to charge hackers from the group that has been linked to attacks targeting over 100 organizations since its emergence in May 2022.

Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter __ and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

U.K. Hacker Linked to Notorious Scattered Spider Group Arrested in Spain

Plus: US lawmakers have nothing to say about an Israeli influence campaign aimed at US voters, a former LA Dodgers owner wants to fix the internet, and more.

Despite years worth of efforts to eliminate the scourge of ransomware targeting schools, hospitals, and critical infrastructure worldwide, experts are warning that the crisis is only heating up, with criminal gangs growing ever more aggressive in their tactics. The threat of real-world violence now looms, some experts warn, as the data stolen grows increasingly sensitive and millions in potential profits hang in the balance. “We know where your CEO lives,” read a message reportedly received by one victim. Attacks targeting the medical sector are blooming in response to the $44 million payout by Change Healthcare this March.

United States lawmakers and intelligence officials are circling their wagons following the revelation of Israel’s involvement in a malign influence campaign that targeted US voters—an attempt by America’s Middle East ally to artificially boost support for an increasingly unpopular war that was kicked off by Hamas’ unprecedented Oct. 7th attack. The sock-puppet operation, which was launched by an Israeli contractor on X, Facebook, and Instagram and utilized OpenAI’s ChatGPT software, impersonated mostly Black Americans and targeted “Black and Democratic” lawmakers. A weeks’ worth of efforts by WIRED to get answers from US officials who may have been notified about the operation prior to a vote on enhancing military aide to Israel went ignored. Strikingly, the National Security Council denied having ever heard of it.

Frank McCourt, a real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, explained why he’s spearheading an effort to purchase TikTok, which the United States is slated to ban unless its current owner, ByteDance, decides to sell the platform to a US company—a decision that will undoubtedly require the consent of the Chinese government. McCourt sees the internet as being imperiled by closed-off platforms like Facebook and X and is embracing the growing interest in decentralized networks. Decentralized platforms such as Mastodon have been popular among a subset of users for many years, allowing people to effectively own their own social networks and moderate them according to their own rules. These private networks are free to connect with others using the same software but can also sever connections to communities that embrace harmful content. (Think of these user-controlled networks as “islands” with diplomatic ties between them.) McCourt says purchasing and decentralizing TikTok could be the first step in raising the internet out of the siloed swamp that it is today thanks to Meta and its competitors.

But that’s not all. Each week, we round up the security news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories, and stay safe out there.

****Pentagon Led Anti-Vax Psyops Against Filipinos Under Trump****

A bombshell Reuters investigation has unearthed a malign influence campaign launched by the US military at the height of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. The campaign utilized sock-puppet accounts on X, Facebook, and Instagram and was focused on convincing citizens of the Philippines that vaccines produced by China were dangerous and—preying on the religious beliefs of Muslims—full of pig parts. Infectious disease experts expressed dismay at the Pentagon’s actions. According to Reuters, the campaign was ordered to an end by the Biden White House shortly after the president’s inauguration, though the Pentagon was apparently slow to enact the commander in chief’s orders. The private contractor responsible for producing the Pentagon’s disinformation was recently awarded a $493 million US government contract.

****Microsoft Hid Major Vulnerability Tied to Historic SolarWinds Attack****

ProPublica recounts how, in 2016, a top cybersecurity specialist raised alarms about a cloud-based vulnerability at Microsoft, a major US government contractor. The weakness threatened to expose national security secrets among other sensitive data. The specialist “pleaded” with the company to address the problem, but his concerns were dismissed by the tech giant as it strived to secure a multibillion-dollar government contract in the cloud computing space. Frustrated, the specialist quit the company and, months later, as predicted, Russian hackers carried out SolarWinds, one of the largest cyberattacks in US history. The reporting brings into question testimony by Microsoft president Brad Smith, who assured Congress in 2016 there was no way the hackers had exploited his company’s software.

****Police Victims of Face-Recognition Errors Decry California Bill as Inadequate****

Three Black men jailed in the US for crimes they didn't commit—after having been falsely identified by police face-recognition software—are speaking out _against_ pending legislation in California that lawmakers claim would protect citizens from such egregious mistakes. The men say the bill, which passed with unanimous support from the state assembly last month and now is under scrutiny in its upper chamber, would have done nothing to stop them from being falsely arrested. Said one of the men: “In my case, as in others, the police did exactly what AB 1814 would require them to do,” adding, “Once the facial recognition software told them I was the suspect, it poisoned the investigation. This technology is racially biased and unreliable and should be prohibited.”

****The Other Threat From Surveillance Data Brokers: Garbage Data****

While much of the scrutiny facing the data broker industry concerns its power to monitor people’s movements and attendance at sensitive locations such abortion clinics and mental health facilities, there’s another issue at play: Much of the data it markets is “inaccurate trash,” The Record reports. A chief privacy officer at Acxiom, a leading third-party data broker, acknowledged as much in an interview last month, saying the “inferences” drawn by his company are, at best, “informed guesses.” Experts are growing increasingly concerned about the downstream effects, with some highlighting how insurance companies are relying more and more on data brokers to inform how much customers should pay. Another expert tells The Record that data brokers may be incentivized not to scrutinize the data too closely, noting that customers aren’t too worried if a fraction of it leads them to false assumptions.

Ransomware Attacks Are Getting Worse

Meta on Friday said it's delaying its efforts to train the company's large language models (LLMs) using public content shared by adult users on Facebook and Instagram in the European Union following a request from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).
The company expressed disappointment at having to put its AI plans on pause, stating it had taken into account feedback from regulators and

Artificial Intelligence / Privacy

Meta on Friday said it's delaying its efforts to train the company's large language models (LLMs) using public content shared by adult users on Facebook and Instagram in the European Union following a request from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).

The company expressed disappointment at having to put its AI plans on pause, stating it had taken into account feedback from regulators and data protection authorities in the region.

At issue is Meta's plan to use personal data to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models without seeking users' explicit consent, instead relying on the legal basis of 'Legitimate Interests' for processing first and third-party data in the region.

These changes were expected to come into effect on June 26, before when the company said users could opt out of having their data used by submitting a request "if they wish." Meta is already utilizing user-generated content to train its AI in other markets such as the U.S.

"This is a step backwards for European innovation, competition in AI development and further delays bringing the benefits of AI to people in Europe," Stefano Fratta, global engagement director of Meta privacy policy, said.

"We remain highly confident that our approach complies with European laws and regulations. AI training is not unique to our services, and we're more transparent than many of our industry counterparts."

It also said it cannot bring Meta AI to Europe without being able to train its AI models on locally-collected information that captures the diverse languages, geography, and cultural references, noting that doing so would otherwise amount to a "second-rate experience."

Besides working with the DPC to bring the AI tool to Europe, it noted the delay will help it address requests it received from the U.K. regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), prior to commencing the training.

"In order to get the most out of generative AI and the opportunities it brings, it is crucial that the public can trust that their privacy rights will be respected from the outset," Stephen Almond, executive director of regulatory risk at the ICO, said.

"We will continue to monitor major developers of generative AI, including Meta, to review the safeguards they have put in place and ensure the information rights of U.K. users are protected."

The development comes as Austrian non-profit noyb (none of your business) filed a complaint in 11 European countries alleging violation of GDPR privacy laws in the region by collecting users' data to develop unspecified AI technologies and share it with any third-party.

"Meta is basically saying that it can use 'any data from any source for any purpose and make it available to anyone in the world,' as long as it's done via 'AI technology,'" noyb's founder Max Schrems said. "This is clearly the opposite of GDPR compliance."

"Meta doesn't say what it will use the data for, so it could either be a simple chatbot, extremely aggressive personalized advertising or even a killer drone. Meta also says that user data can be made available to any 'third-party' – which means anyone in the world."

Noyb also criticized Meta for making disingenuous claims and framing the delay as a "collective punishment," pointing out that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) permits personal data to be processed as long as users give their informed opt-in consent.

"Meta could therefore roll out AI technology in Europe, if it would just bother to ask people to agree, but it seems Meta is doing everything to ever gain opt-in consent for any processing," it said.

Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter __ and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

Meta Halts AI Training on EU User Data Amid Privacy Concerns

The company focused heavily on data and system security in the announcement of its generative AI platform, Apple Intelligence, but experts worry that companies will have little visibility into data security.

Source: Cosmo Condina via Alamy Stock Photo

Apple's long-awaited announcement of its generative AI (GenAI) capabilities came with an in-depth discussion of the company's security considerations for the platform. But the tech industry's past focus on harvesting user data from nearly every product and service have left many concerned over the data security and privacy implications of Apple's move. Fortunately, there are some proactive ways that companies can address potential risks.

Apple's approach to integrating GenAI — dubbed Apple Intelligence — includes context-sensitive searches, editing emails for tone, and the easy creation of graphics, with Apple promising that the powerful features require only local processing on mobile devices to protect user and business data. The company detailed a five-step approach to strengthen privacy and security for the platform, with much of the processing done on a user's device using Apple Silicon. More complex queries, however, will be sent to the company's private cloud and use the services of OpenAI and its large language model (LLM).

While companies will have to wait to see how Apple's commitment to security plays out, the company has put a lot of consideration into how GenAI services will be handled on devices and how the information will be protected, says Joseph Thacker, principal AI engineer and security researcher at AppOmni, a cloud-security firm.

"Apple's focus on privacy and security in the design is definitely a good sign," he says. "Features like not allowing privileged runtime access and preventing user targeting show they are thinking about potential abuse cases."

Apple spent significant time during its announcement reinforcing the idea that the company takes security seriously, and published a paper online that describes the company's five requirements for its Private Cloud Compute service, such as no privileged runtime access and hardening the system to prevent targeting specific users.

Still, large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, and other forms of GenAI are new enough that the threats remain poorly understood, and some will slip through Apple's efforts, says Steve Wilson, chief privacy officer at cloud security and compliance provider Exabeam, and lead on the Open Web Application Security Project's Top 10 Security Risks for LLMs.

"I really worry that LLMs are a very, very different beast, and traditional security engineers, they just don't have experience with these AI techniques yet," he says. "There are very few people who do."

**Apple Makes Security a Centerpiece**

Apple seems to be aware of the security risks that concern its customers, especially businesses. The implementation of Apple Intelligence across a user's devices, dubbed the Personal Intelligence System, will connect data from applications in a way that has, perhaps, only been implemented through the company's health-data services. Conceivably, every message and email sent from a device could be reviewed by AI and context added through on-device semantic indexes.

Yet, the company pledged that, in most cases, the data never leaves the device, and the information is anonymized as well.

"It is aware of your personal data, without collecting your personal data," Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, stated in a four-minute video on Apple Intelligence and privacy during the company's June 10 launch, adding: "You are in control of your data, where it is stored and who can access it."

When it does leave the device, data will be processed in the company's Private Cloud Compute service, so Apple can take advantage of more powerful server-based generative-AI models, while still protecting privacy. The company says that it never stores or makes accessible any data to Apple. In addition, Apple will make every production build of its Private Cloud Compute platform available to security researchers for vulnerability research in conjunction with a bug-bounty program.

Such steps seemingly go beyond what other companies have promised and should assuage the fears of enterprise security teams, AppOmni's Thacker says.

"This type of transparency and collaboration with the security research community is important for finding and fixing vulnerabilities before they can be exploited in the wild," he says. "It allows Apple to leverage the diverse skills and perspectives of researchers to really put the system through the wringer from a security testing perspective. While it's not a guarantee of security, it will help a lot."

**There's an App for (Leaking) That**

However, the interactions between apps and data on mobile devices and the behavior of LLMs may be too complex to fully understand at this point, says Exabeam's Wilson. The attack surface area of LLMs continues to surprise the large companies behind the major AI models. Following its release of its latest Gemini model, for example, Google had to contend with inadvertent data poisoning that arose from training its model with untrusted data.

"Those search components are falling victim to these kind of indirect injection data-poisoning incidents, where they're off telling people to eat glue and rocks," Wilson says. "So it's one thing to say, 'Oh, this is a super-sophisticated organization, they'll get this right,' but Google's been proving over and over and over again that they won't."

Apple's announcement comes as companies are quickly experimenting with ways to integrate GenAI into the workplace to improve productivity and automate traditionally tough-to-automate processes. Bringing the features to mobile devices has happened slowly, but now, Samsung has released its Galaxy AI, Google has announced the Gemini mobile app, and Microsoft has announced Copilot for Windows.

While Copilot for Windows is integrated with many applications, Apple Intelligence appears to go beyond even Microsoft's approach.

**Think Different (About Threats)**

Overall, companies need to first gain visibility into their employees' use of LLMs and other GenAI. While they do not need to go to the extent of billionaire tech innovator Elon Musk, a former investor in OpenAI, who raised concerns that Apple — or OpenAI — would abuse users' data or fail to secure business information and pledged to ban iPhones at his companies, chief information security officers (CISOs) certainly should have a discussion with their mobile device management (MDM) providers, Exabeam's Wilson says.

Right now, controls to regulate data going into and out of Apple Intelligence do not appear to exist and, in the future, may not be accessible to MDM platforms, he says.

"Apple has not historically provided a lot of device management, because they are leaned in on personal use," Wilson says. "So it's been up to third parties for the last 10-plus years to try and build these third-party frameworks that allow you to install controls on the phone, but it's unclear whether they're going to have the hooks into \[Apple Intelligence\] to help control it."

Until more controls come online, enterprises need to set a policy, and to find ways to integrate their existing security controls, authentication systems, and data loss prevention tools with AI, says AppOmni's Thacker.

"Companies should also have clear policies around what types of data and conversations are appropriate to share with AI assistants," he says. "So while Apple's efforts help, enterprises still have work to do to fully integrate these tools securely."

**About the Author(s)**

Veteran technology journalist of more than 20 years. Former research engineer. Written for more than two dozen publications, including CNET News.com, Dark Reading, MIT's Technology Review, Popular Science, and Wired News. Five awards for journalism, including Best Deadline Journalism (Online) in 2003 for coverage of the Blaster worm. Crunches numbers on various trends using Python and R. Recent reports include analyses of the shortage in cybersecurity workers and annual vulnerability trends.

Apple Intelligence Could Introduce Device Security Risks

Our collection of the most relevant reporting and industry perspectives for those guiding cybersecurity strategies and focused on SecOps. Also included: Rockwell's dire ICS warning; a red alert on biometrics; cybersecurity for the Hajj season.

Welcome to CISO Corner, Dark Reading's weekly digest of articles tailored specifically to security operations readers and security leaders. Every week, we'll offer articles gleaned from across our news operation, The Edge, DR Technology, DR Global, and our Commentary section. We're committed to bringing you a diverse set of perspectives to support the job of operationalizing cybersecurity strategies, for leaders at organizations of all shapes and sizes.

**In this issue of CISO Corner:**

*   Apple's AI Offering Makes Big Privacy Promises
    
*   Scores of Biometrics Bugs Emerge, Highlighting Authentication Risks
    
*   DR Global: Governments, Businesses Tighten Cybersecurity Around Hajj Season
    

*   Why CIO & CISO Collaboration Is Key to Organizational Resilience
    
*   Rockwell's ICS Directive Comes as Critical Infrastructure Risk Peaks
    
*   4 Ways to Help a Security Culture Thrive
    

Don't miss "Anatomy of a Data Breach: What to Do if It Happens to You," a free Dark Reading virtual event scheduled for June 20! Speakers include Verizon's Alex Pinto, plus execs from Snowflake, pharma giant GSK, Salesforce, and more — register today!

**Apple's AI Offering Makes Big Privacy Promises**

By Agam Shah, Contributing Writer, Dark Reading

Apple's guarantee of privacy on every AI transaction — whether on-device or cloud — is ambitious and could influence trustworthy AI deployments on device and in the cloud, analysts say.

Apple's announcement of Apple Intelligence and plans to integrate AI across its devices and applications comes with a commitment to guarantee privacy on every AI transaction. This sets a high bar on zero-trust infrastructure that competitors may try to match.

Because of Apple's walled garden model, rival providers don’t have nearly the same level of control over their AI infrastructure. Unlike Apple, they can’t lock down security as queries pass through various hardware and software layers. For example, OpenAI and Microsoft process queries through GPUs from Nvidia, which handles vulnerability discovery and patching.

“If Apple sets the standard, the effect will be 'why I should buy Android if I don’t care about the privacy,'" says Alex Matrosov, CEO of security company Binarly.io. "The next step will be Google following up and trying to maybe implement or do the similar thing."

Read more: Apple's AI Offering Makes Big Privacy Promises

Related: OpenAI Forms Another Safety Committee After Dismantling Prior Team

**Scores of Biometrics Bugs Emerge, Highlighting Authentication Risks**

By Nate Nelson, Contributing Writer, Dark Reading

Face scans stored like passwords inevitably will be compromised, like passwords are. But there's a crucial difference between the two that organizations can rely on when their manufacturers fail.

Biometric security is more popular today than ever, with widespread adoption in the public sector — law enforcement, national ID systems, etc. — as well as for commercial industries like travel and personal computing. In Japan, subway riders can "pay by face," and Singapore's immigration system relies on face scans and thumbprints to allow travelers into the country. The fact that even burger places are experimenting with face scans suggests something's brewing here.

But researchers have found two dozen vulnerabilities in a biometric terminal used in critical facilities worldwide could allow hackers to gain unauthorized access, manipulate the device, deploy malware, and steal biometric data, which highlights the risks that come with implementing these systems.

The critical nature of the environments in which these systems are so often deployed necessitates that organizations go above and beyond to ensure their integrity. And that job takes much more than just patching newly discovered vulnerabilities.

Read more: Scores of Biometrics Bugs Emerge, Highlighting Authentication Risks

Related: Biometric Bypass: BrutePrint Makes Short Work of Fingerprint Security

**Global: Governments, Businesses Tighten Cybersecurity Around Hajj Season**

By Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer, Dark Reading

While cyberattacks drop slightly during the week of the Islamic pilgrimage, organizations in Saudi Arabia and other countries with large Muslim populations see attacks on the rise.

The final month of the Islamic calendar, Dhu al-Hijjah, began on June 7, marking the countdown for millions of Muslims to the Hajj pilgrimage, and also a time when cybercriminals and cyber-espionage actors see increased opportunity amid reduced vigilance and slimmed staffing.

While many of the cyberattacks are focused on pilgrims as consumers of travel services, a variety of businesses — from banks to e-commerce sites — are at greater risk of data theft and denial-of-service attacks, according to experts. On June 3, for example, cyber-threat actors announced a data leak on an underground forum that allegedly contained the personal information of 168 million users from "The Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization in Iran," according to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky.

The attacks highlight the two aspects of how cyberattackers see the Hajj season: as an opportunity to take advantage of pilgrims, but also as a time of reduced resources for security teams, making business and government agencies vulnerable.

Read more: Governments, Businesses Tighten Cybersecurity Around Hajj Season

Related: 'DuneQuixote' Shows Stealth Cyberattack Methods Are Evolving. Can Defenders Keep Up?

**The CEO Is Next**

Commentary by Joe Sullivan, CEO, Ukraine Friends, & CEO, Joe Sullivan Security LLC

If CEOs want to avoid being the target of government enforcement actions, they need to take a personal interest in ensuring that their corporation invests in cybersecurity.

One day soon, a government agency will very publicly seek to hold a corporate CEO personally liable for a failure to ensure their organization invested sufficiently in cybersecurity. The surprising thing won't be that it happens, but rather how many people who work for and look up to the CEO will be happy when it does.

We're experiencing a movement toward regulation by enforcement. Look no further than the National Cybersecurity Strategy, which, at its core, demands that corporate America do more to protect citizens from cyberattacks. There's also the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) action against the software company SolarWinds and its head of security. The case has raised eyebrows, specifically because the security leader was held personally responsible.

But with very few exceptions, the CISO or senior-most security leader is simply not the "responsible corporate officer.” It's the CEO. Security leaders rarely, if ever, get the budget needed to do their job well. CEOs and boards that do control the corporate budget rarely invest the time to understand their cyber-risks, and instead allocate resources in other directions.

Read more: The CEO Is Next

Related: White House Fills in Details of National Cybersecurity Strategy

**Why CIO & CISO Collaboration Is Key to Organizational Resilience**

Commentary by Robert Grazioli, Chief Information Officer, Ivanti

Alignment between these domains is quickly becoming a strategic imperative.

Gartner forecasts that the world will spend $215 billion on risk management and cybersecurity in 2024. That's a 14% increase over 2023. But many workers are feeling spread thin, with more data and endpoints than ever and not enough qualified talent to be found. It's time to finally break down the silos between IT and security.

That starts by fostering alignment between the CIO and chief information security officer (CISO).

Individually, CISOs and CIOs are powerful forces with a lot on their plates — and a lot on the line. Together, they could be unstoppable. However, historically, organizational structures have relegated CISOs and CIOs to separate domains with distinct — and occasionally contradictory — objectives.

Here's how to foster alignment: Why CIO & CISO Collaboration Is Key to Organizational Resilience

Related: CISO & CIO Convergence: Ready or Not, Here It Comes

**Rockwell's ICS Directive Comes as Critical Infrastructure Risk Peaks**

By Tara Seals, Managing Editor, News, Dark Reading

Critical infrastructure is facing increasingly disruptive threats to physical processes, while thousands of devices are online with weak authentication and riddled with exploitable bugs.

Industrial control systems (ICS) giant Rockwell Automation's recent directive to customers to disconnect their gear from the Internet showcases not just growing cyber risk to critical infrastructure, but the unique challenges that security teams face in the sector, experts say.

CISA is warning that increased threats to could lead to various catastrophic attacks, including denial-of-service (DoS) efforts that take down electrical grids; privilege escalation and lateral movement to burrow deeper into the operational technology (OT) environment in order to control it; modifying settings to, say, change safety thresholds for power generators; remotely compromising programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to halt water sector operations; or even conducting destructive Stuxnet-style attacks that can obliterate a site's ability to function permanently.

Yet thousands of devices are exposed online with weak authentication and riddled with exploitable bugs; and there's an endemic lack of security team participation in site design and asset/infrastructure management. All in all, it's not an ideal situation.

Read more: Rockwell's ICS Directive Comes as Critical Infrastructure Risk Peaks

Related: Volt Typhoon Hits Multiple Electric Utilities, Expands Cyber Activity

**4 Ways to Help a Security Culture Thrive**

DR Technology commentary by Ken Deitz, CSO/CISO, Secureworks

Creating and nurturing a corporate environment of proactive cybersecurity means putting people first — their needs, weaknesses, and skills.

A good cybersecurity culture trusts and empowers teammates to make good decisions. In turn, that trust fuels a more productive relationship between cybersecurity and the business. Culture is a living entity that needs to be continuously nurtured. Give it the dedication it needs, and your businesses will be safer as a result.

Here are some core pillars for establishing an effective security culture:

1\. Establish the Right Mindset: Focus on the positive actions that people can and should take.

2\. Engage with Empathy: A productive and inclusive security culture is one that shuns blame. Instead, focus on what you can collectively learn from the incident to enrich your cyber strategy for the future.

3\. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate: When it comes to cybersecurity, there's no such thing as too much communication. People have a lot going on in their jobs and lives. Meet people where they are, and you'll have much better results.

4\. Stay on Your Toes: New and emerging technologies bring opportunities and challenges. Generative artificial intelligence (AI), for example, can offer teammates productivity gains, but they also need to know the risks.

Read more: 4 Ways to Help a Security Culture Thrive

Related: How to Transform Security Awareness Into Security Culture

CISO Corner: Apple's AI Privacy Promises; CEOs in the Hot Seat

Microsoft on Thursday revealed that it's delaying the rollout of the controversial artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Recall feature for Copilot+ PCs.
To that end, the company said it intends to shift from general availability to a preview available first in the Windows Insider Program (WIP) in the coming weeks.
"We are adjusting the release model for Recall to leverage the expertise of the

Microsoft Delays AI-Powered Recall Feature for Copilot+ PCs Amid Security Concerns

Apple's guarantee of privacy on every AI transaction could influence trustworthy AI deployments.

Source: OleCNX via Alamy Stock Photo

Apple has long styled itself as the company that cares about privacy, and it continues to tout its privacy bona fides with Apple Intelligence.

At this week's Worldwide Developer Conference, the company announced Apple Intelligence, its secure AI system, and plans to integrate AI across its devices and applications. The AI features will be used to upgrade personal assistant features in Apple devices and provide assistance with writing and image manipulation.

While a lightweight AI model runs locally on Apple devices, more complex queries will go to the cloud. Apple will assess the complexity and computing power required by an AI query and decide whether to process it on device or send it to the cloud. Data won’t leave the device if it is processed on device, and layers of security protect the information sent to the cloud.

Within this secure AI system, user data is not visible to anyone, even Apple, and is deleted once a query is answered, the company said.

"Your data is never stored or made accessible to Apple. It's used exclusively to fulfill your request," said Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, during a WWDC keynote.

**Trusted AI Deployments?**

Apple's guarantee of privacy on every AI transaction — whether on-device or in the cloud — is ambitious and could influence trustworthy AI deployments.

Apple's hardware and software implementation to guarantee privacy on every AI transaction sets a high bar on zero-trust infrastructure that competitors may try to match, says James Sanders, an analyst at chip research firm TechInsights.

Sanders notes there is a "growing trust problem" with LLMs, especially as top AI providers collect information from users to train large-language models or improve services. Google collects user data from across its vast portfolio of products to boost its capabilities. It also includes human reviewers to evaluate answers with the ultimate goal to improve its Gemini AI service.

Apple did not announce its own AI infrastructure and instead will be integrating with OpenAI. Apple left open the possibility of working with others as well. Users will be prompted to agree to send user data to OpenAI.

"I do wonder to what extent this is going to put pressure on Microsoft to adopt a similar method," Sanders says.

**Building an AI Walled Garden**

As part of its investments, the company has built a trustworthy cloud infrastructure called Private Compute Cloud with new servers and chips to handle AI queries that demand more computing power. Apple's secure boot and secure enclaves protect data.

"These models run on servers … specially created using Apple silicon. These Apple silicon servers offer the privacy and security of your iPhone from the silicon on up," Apple’s Federighi said.

Private data can be easily stolen en route or from the cloud, but Apple is using the latest hardware and software techniques to protect the data, said Matthew Green, associate professor at Johns Hopkin’s computer science department. Apple devices generate encryption keys, which authenticates devices and cloud connections. The request is then sent to a secure enclave on Apple's servers, where the requests are processed.

Apple is also taking a serverless approach in which data is deleted once the answer is sent back. New keys are generated each time a system reboots. The operating system also has an attestation system to verify users and software images.

"Specifically, it signs a hash of the software and shares this with every phone/client. If you trust this infrastructure, you'll know it's running a specific piece of software," Green said.

Apple controls nearly every major piece of software and hardware in its infrastructure, which makes it easier for them to build a strong privacy wall around its AI service, said Alex Matrosov, CEO of security company Binarly.io.

“I really liked how they frame all the requirements and specifically use their own silicon. Once they control everything, they can guarantee the chain of trust from the silicon to the cloud,” Matrosov said.

Rival providers don’t have nearly the same level of control over their AI infrastructure. Unlike Apple, they can’t lock down security as queries pass through various hardware and software layers, Matrosov says. For example, OpenAI and Microsoft process queries through GPUs from Nvidia, which handles vulnerability discovery and patching.

"If Apple sets the standard, the effect will be 'why I should buy Android if I don’t care about the privacy.' The next step will be Google following up and trying to maybe implement or do the similar thing," Matrosov said.

**About the Author(s)**

Agam Shah has covered enterprise IT for more than a decade. Outside of machine learning, hardware, and chips, he's also interested in martial arts and Russia.

Apple's AI Offering Makes Big Privacy Promises

PRESS RELEASE

MINNEAPOLIS, June 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- NetSPI, the proactive security solution, today announced its acquisition of Hubble Technology Inc. ("Hubble"), a Northern Virginia-based cyber asset attack surface management (CAASM) and cybersecurity posture management solution. The integration of Hubble's Asset Intelligence™ and CAASM product, Aurora™, into The NetSPI Platform will empower security teams to achieve complete visibility of their rapidly evolving attack surfaces and tackle asset and exposure management challenges.

Hubble's agentless CAASM platform enables organizations to continuously identify new assets and risks, remediate security control blind spots, and gain a holistic view of their security posture by providing an accurate inventory of cyber assets, both external and internal. Hubble was founded in 2020 with the backing of Accel, CrowdStrike Falcon Fund, and Paladin Capital. The company's Founder, Tom Parker, will join NetSPI as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

According to Forrester's The Attack Surface Management Solutions Landscape, Q2 2024, "External attack surface management (EASM) vendors tend to use the external discovery scans as a jumping-off point for managing exposures, while CAASM vendors provide more context on the asset and its controls. Both are crucial foundations for teams to better prioritize and remediate security gaps."

With the acquisition of Hubble, NetSPI will deliver both EASM and CAASM capabilities within The NetSPI Platform to continuously discover, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities and exposures across the entire IT asset estate – from the cloud to bring-your-own-device (BOYD) and industrial control environments. This will also significantly enhance and accelerate NetSPI's ability to accurately prioritize risk associated with assets and vulnerabilities in customer networks and help them assess the exposure to their most important assets relative to these risks.

"This acquisition is one of the most notable milestones on our journey from point-in-time pentesting to technology-enabled proactive security," said Aaron Shilts, CEO at NetSPI. "You can't secure what you don't have visibility into. We support the most trusted brands on Earth giving them visibility into external/cloud assets and exposures. With Hubble's CAASM solution, we can provide comprehensive, 360-degree visibility while delivering telemetry and insights across the entire IT estate. We are thrilled to welcome Tom and Hubble to team NetSPI and look forward to the expertise he will bring as our new CTO driving innovation across our products."

As CTO, Tom will drive business growth through innovation across NetSPI's proactive security solutions and partner with customers to keep pace with the ever-changing technology and threat landscapes. Prior to forming Hubble, Tom was CTO at Accenture Security, leading growth strategy and M&A. He joined Accenture Security through the sale of his prior startup, FusionX, which was an early pioneer in commercial cybersecurity red teaming.

"The security industry notoriously creates siloed solutions that only address a small part of the problem. That's not the case with NetSPI," shared Tom Parker, Founder of Hubble and NetSPI CTO. "For the first time, with the introduction of CAASM, security leaders will have a holistic end-to-end view of their security posture in a single platform. I am delighted to join this proactive security powerhouse as their new CTO, helping customers reduce risk, drive efficiency, and strengthen the confidence that their security platforms represent a full picture of their environment."

NetSPI customers can expect to see CAASM within The NetSPI Platform later this year. To learn more about the CAASM solution, reach out at www.netspi.com/contact or visit www.netspi.com/caasm.

Join Aaron and Tom on July 17 for a live webcast where they will showcase Hubble's technology and discuss the importance of bringing EASM and CAASM together to achieve holistic attack surface management. Register today.

About NetSPI  
NetSPI is the proactive security solution used to discover, prioritize, and remediate security vulnerabilities of the highest importance, so businesses can protect what matters most.  

Leveraging a unique combination of dedicated security experts, intelligent process, and advanced technology, NetSPI helps security teams take a proactive approach to cybersecurity with more clarity, speed, and scale than ever before.

By continually advancing solutions such as Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS), Attack Surface Management (ASM), and Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS), NetSPI goes beyond the noise to deliver high impact results and recommendations based on business needs, so customers can protect their priorities, perform better, and innovate with confidence.

NetSPI secures the most trusted brands on Earth, including nine of the top 10 U.S. banks, four of the top five leading cloud providers, three of the five largest healthcare companies, four MAMAA Big Tech companies, seven of the top 10 U.S. retailers & e-commerce companies, and many of the Fortune 500.

NetSPI is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, with offices across the U.S., Canada, the UK, and India. Follow NetSPI on LinkedIn and X.

About Hubble   
Hubble is a technology asset visibility and cyber posture management solution that provides a complete and continually updated map of your entire technology environment and the state of your most critical security controls. Whether you operate in the cloud, are a heavy user of industrial control systems and IoT or operate a hybrid IT environment – Hubble has you covered.

Hubble is completely agentless, leveraging your existing IT stack to build a knowledge graph of your environment, allowing you to better understand your assets, and their relative risk, and prioritize triage of security events and posture gaps. Backed by Paladin Capital, Accel, and CrowdStrike Falcon Fund, Hubble has won numerous awards for its market-defining solution, including the prestigious 2022 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer.

NetSPI Acquires Hubble, Adds CAASM to Complement its IEASM

Creating and nurturing a corporate environment of proactive cybersecurity means putting people first — their needs, weaknesses, and skills.

Ken Deitz, CSO/CISO, Secureworks

June 13, 2024

5 Min Read

Source: Washington Imaging via Alamy Stock Photo

COMMENTARY

"Underneath every simple, obvious story about 'human error,' there is a deeper, more complex story about organization."  
— Sidney Dekker, The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error

In my experience, culture trumps strategy when building and maintaining robust cyber defenses. It's a self-evident truth that in cybersecurity, all roads lead back to people. At its heart, security is a human problem — one that needs a human-centric solution. That's what makes culture so crucial.

It's often said that it's not the situation that defines us but how we respond. If the worst happens and your company suffers a breach, your security culture will be on the global stage. It will be your north star guiding how you communicate, engage, and respond to all stakeholders. If your culture is lacking, it will inhibit your long-term cyber maturity and fracture trusted relationships. Trust and security exist in a delicate balance, and culture is the glue that binds them together.

During my career I've learned valuable lessons about the core pillars of security culture and how to not only create a good one, but nurture it as well.

**1\. Establish the Right Mindset**

First, mindset matters. I've worked with organizations where the focus has been on everything that an employee can't or shouldn't do. Let's be honest: That's an overwhelming list that, even with the best of intentions, people aren't going to remember or be able to practically integrate into their working days. Instead, I suggest flipping the script — what are the positive actions people can and should take?

For example, if someone at Secureworks gets an email that they are unsure about, they can just send it over to our designated threat team for investigation. The threat team then comes back to let our teammate know whether it's OK. Regardless, the threat team always starts their response with the same two words: "thank you." Cybersecurity is a team sport, and each of us plays a part. It's important to recognize that in all of its forms. That "thank you" also provides encouragement to remain curious and vigilant.

**2\. Engage With Empathy**

A productive and inclusive security culture is one that shuns blame. A culture of blame is counterproductive and makes your teammates feel powerless — the exact opposite of how you want them to feel. If someone clicks, scans, or interacts with something they shouldn't, you need to know as soon as possible. If your culture points fingers and makes people feel shame, the chances are they'll either procrastinate about telling you or not tell you at all, and the first you'll know about it is when red lights start flashing. Cybercriminals take advantage of people, so don't double the impact with victim-shaming or making an example of the person. Instead, focus on what you can collectively learn from the incident to enrich your cyber strategy for the future.

**3\. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate**

When it comes to cybersecurity, there's no such thing as too much communication. Just because you've sent an email or mentioned something in a company all-hands meeting doesn't mean that the message has gotten across. People have a lot going on in their jobs and lives. Meet people where they are, and you'll have much better results.

First, do an audit of the communication channels that your business has — intranet, Viva Engage, Slack, Teams, email, team and company meetings, etc. — and devise a communications strategy. Which messages resonate best across which channels? If you're giving an update on a strategic initiative, a 10-minute slot in the company all-hands could be the appropriate forum. But if you're aware of an active QR phishing email campaign, you likely want to reach all employees as quickly as possible, so you might use a combination of email and internal message boards.

It's not just about matching the right message to the right channel, but the person as well. If I were the only person to talk to our Secureworks teammates about cybersecurity, it would be easy to zone me out. That's why we empower all leaders to talk about security in their team meetings and why our CEO underscores our investments in this area during company meetings. Different people bring different perspectives, and that's crucial to conveying the importance of cybersecurity.

**4\. Stay on Your Toes**

New and emerging technologies bring opportunities and challenges. Generative artificial intelligence (AI), for example, can offer teammates productivity gains. But if you don't create a safe playground for them, they'll develop their own ways to access and engage with these tools. This, again, comes back to meeting people where they are. We've made it easy to interact with and use AI within a safe environment that we've built. It's a win-win situation.

The threat landscape evolves rapidly. Deepfakes, for example, are becoming more advanced and therefore have the potential to cause damage. Typically, they cultivate a false sense of urgency aimed at panicking people into taking action, such as transferring a large volume of money. Cybercriminals are looking to manipulate the dynamic between the executive they are impersonating and the employee. That's why it's so important we encourage people to question the situation and give them access to simple tools that let them validate the identity of the person they're talking to.

**Cybersecurity Is a Team Sport**

What I've outlined above doesn't happen in isolation. You need to work across many different functions within the business — from HR and communications through to legal and beyond. Be clear about your shared objective with these teams: why you would like their support and the impact you believe working together will have. Share your plans and show them why their teams are so integral to the plan's success. A shared goal galvanizes the whole business.

And so we find ourselves back at the beginning, with trust and security. A good cybersecurity culture trusts and empowers teammates to make good decisions. In turn, that trust fuels a more productive relationship between cybersecurity and the business. Culture is a living entity that needs to be continuously nurtured. Give it the dedication it needs, and your businesses will be safer as a result.

**About the Author(s)**

CSO/CISO, Secureworks

Ken Deitz serves as chief security officer and CISO at Secureworks, working his way up from director of corporate incident response team. He served in the US Navy as a lead analyst in global network exploitation, then became a senior information security analyst at Advanced Concepts, Inc. He worked as branch chief of fusion cell at United States Cyber Command until he joined Secureworks in 2011.

4 Ways to Help a Security Culture Thrive

Experiment demonstrates how AI can turn the tables on cybercriminals, capturing bank account details of how scammers move stolen funds around the world.

Source: tanit boonruen via Alamy Stock Photo

Responding to scammers' emails and text messages typically has been the fodder of threat researchers, YouTube stunts, and even comedians.

Yet one experiment using conversational AI to answer spam messages and engage fraudsters in conversations has shown that large language models (LLMs) can interact with cybercriminals, gleaning threat intelligence by diving down the rabbit hole of financial fraud — an effort that usually requires a human threat analyst.

Over the past two years, researchers at UK-based fraud-defense firm Netcraft used a chatbot based on Open AI's ChatGPT to respond to scams and convince cybercriminals to part with sensitive information: specifically, banks account numbers at more than 600 financial institutions spanning 73 different countries that are used to transfer stolen money.

Overall, the technique allows threat analysts to extract more details about the infrastructure used by cybercriminals to con people out of their money, says Robert Duncan, vice president of product strategy for Netcraft.

"We're effectively using AI to emulate a victim, so we play along with the scam to get to the ultimate goal, which typically \[for the scammer\] is to receive money in some form," he says. "It's proven remarkably robust at adapting to different types of criminal activity ... changing behavior between something like a romance scam, which might last months, \[and\] advanced fee fraud — where you get to the end of it very quickly."

As international fraud rings are profiting from scams — especially romance and investment fraud operating out of cyber-scam centers in Southeast Asia — defenders are searching for ways to expose cybercriminals' financial and infrastructure components and shut them down. Countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, have embarked on partnerships to develop AI in ways that can improve cybersecurity. Using AI chatbots could shift the technological advantage from attackers back to defenders, a form of proactive cyber defense.

**Personas With Local Languages**

Netcraft's research shows that AI chatbots could help curb cybercrime by forcing cybercriminals to work harder. Currently, cybercriminals and fraudsters use mass email and text-messaging campaigns to cast a wide net, hoping to catch a few credulous victims from which to steal money.

The two-year research project uncovered thousands of accounts linked to fraudsters. While Duncan would not reveal the name of the banks, the scammers' accounts were mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom — likely because the personas donned by the AI chatbots were from those regions as well. Financial fraud works better when using bank accounts in the same country as the victim, he says.

The company is already seeing that distribution change, however, as it adds more languages to its chatbot's capabilities.

"When we spin up some new personas in Italy, we're now seeing more Italian accounts coming in, so it's really a function of where we're running these personas and what language we're having them speak in," he says.

The promise of using AI chatbots to engage with scammers and cybercriminals is that machines can conduct such conversations at scale. Netcraft has bet on the technology as a way to acquire threat intelligence that would not otherwise be available, announcing its Conversational Scam Intelligence service at the RSA Conference in May.

**AI on AI**

Typically, scammers attempt to convince the victims to buy cryptocurrency or gift cards as the preferred way of payment, but eventually hand over bank account information, according to Netcraft. The goal in using an AI chatbot is to keep the conversation going long enough to reach those milestones. The average conversation results in cybercriminals sending 32 messages and the chatbot issuing 15 replies.

When the AI chatbot system succeeds, it can harvest important threat data from cybercriminals. In one case, a scammer promising an inheritance of $5 million to the "victim" sent information on 17 different accounts at 12 different banks in an attempt to complete the transfer of an initial fee. Other fraudsters have impersonated specific banks, such as Deutsche Bank and the Central Bank of Nigeria, to convince the "victim" to transfer money. The chatbot duly collected all the information. 

While Netcraft's current focus with the experiment is to gain in-depth threat intelligence, the platform could be operationalized to engage fraudsters on a larger scale, flipping the current asymmetry between attackers and defenders. Rather than attackers using automation to increase the workload on defenders, a conversational system could widely engage cybercriminals, forcing them to have to figure out which conversations are real and which are not.

Such an approach holds promise, especially since attackers are starting to adopt AI in new ways as well, Duncan says.

"We've definitely seen indicators that attackers are sending texts that resemble the type of texts that ChatGPT puts out," he says. "Again, it's very hard to be certain, but we would be very surprised if we weren't already talking back to AI, and essentially we have an AI-on-AI conversation."

**About the Author(s)**

Veteran technology journalist of more than 20 years. Former research engineer. Written for more than two dozen publications, including CNET News.com, Dark Reading, MIT's Technology Review, Popular Science, and Wired News. Five awards for journalism, including Best Deadline Journalism (Online) in 2003 for coverage of the Blaster worm. Crunches numbers on various trends using Python and R. Recent reports include analyses of the shortage in cybersecurity workers and annual vulnerability trends.

Tag

#intel