Secure Google Chrome from Hacking Attacks

Google Chrome is definitely one of the most popular web browsers being used today. Hackers, as we know, are perpetually after whatever gets popular in the world of the internet. This because whatever is popular would help them target more people and steal more data. Thus, Google Chrome too happens to be among the most favorite for cyber criminals across the world. Hence, securing Google Chrome against hacking attacks is really important.

So, how do we secure Google Chrome from cyber attacks? Well, it’s a multi-step process. Lots of things have to be done. Securing your browser is important as it helps secure your device, your internet connection and more importantly, your personal and business data.

Let’s discuss, in detail, what all needs to be done to secure Google Chrome from hacking attacks. Here we go:

Begin by ensuring that your Google account is properly secured!

This is something basic, your Google account needs to be properly secured. Chrome lets you sign in from any device, anytime. Hence, it’s important to ensure the security of your Google account. You need to make sure you are logged out of your account every time you sign in, on any device. You also need to ensure that your password is secure. If you aren’t signed out or if someone knows/cracks your password, it would be easy to manipulate things and cause you harm. Your data could be stolen.

Keeping the browser secured is equally important…

Keeping the browser secured is as important as securing your Google account. You could use a password to protect your browser, and thus, in your absence, no one would be able to take control of your browser and do mischiefs. Similarly, every time you leave your terminal, it’s good to go out of the browser as well.

Keep your browser ‘clean’!

You should make it a habit to keep your browser ‘clean’, by wiping out most of the information from it. In fact, there should be some plan/schedule as regards cleaning the browser. Clear the history periodically, either everytime you log out or at least once every week if not once a day.

Never save passwords on the browser

The browser might offer to ‘remember’ your passwords for you so that you could sign in easily the next time you’re using some service. But it’s always good not to save passwords on the browser. If you save your passwords, it would be possible for someone else to get into your account and misuse it or steal information.

Having a master password helps

Having a master password, which would help you get to your other saved passwords in Chrome, is a good thing to do. Thus you need not worry about remembering all of your passwords and you don’t have to be afraid of your passwords getting stolen or misused either.

Keep your device protected

The device that you use to browse needs to be protected from malware and hacking. For this, you must use whatever security tools you need and also have alerts that tell you if at all your device is compromised. Remember a compromised device means an unsecured browser!

Keep the device locked whenever you’re not using it

Always keep your device locked when you are not using it, be it a computer or any other mobile device. That prevents people from getting on to your device and hijacking your browser and your data as well. Locking your device also gets it off the WiFi network that you are using.

Secure your network, never use unsafe WiFi networks

Securing your network is important; it helps a lot in securing Google Chrome from hacking attacks. Hence you need to do all that is needed to secure your network. Similarly, it’s always advisable never to use unsafe WiFi networks. Whenever you’re using a WiFi network, ensure it’s properly encrypted and if possible use an app or program that would prevent hacking. In fact, using a secure network secures not just your browser, but everything on your device/system.

Trust Chrome for phishing detection

Google Chrome does its own phishing detection and protects you from many phishing websites. So, when your browser tells you that a website is not safe, it’s always advisable to trust it and avoid such sites.

Avoid phishing websites and attachments yourself

In addition to Google Chrome detecting phishing websites for you, it’s always good that you yourself stay away from websites/attachments that could be used for phishing scams. Staying away from such suspicious websites secures your browser, your system/network and your data.

Useful tips for implementing the cloud

Useful tips for implementing the cloud

“One very important thing is to not implement solutions on the cloud with a traditional mindset. Many clients are surprised when they see their first bill because they ‘lift and shift’ the infrastructure,” 

“Remember, the cloud is highly elastic in nature and you can scale up and when you require. So, implement the minimum infrastructure needed and scale it based on load. That’s the secret to success in the cloud!”

Focus on entry and exit points in terms of network connectivity. Wherever possible, use private connections such as Microsoft express route, AWS direct connect.
In terms of cloud application connectivity, always encrypt the data in transit using SSL.
Ensure you implement least privileged and conditional based access to cloud administrative portals such as the Azure portal and AWS management console.
Implement RBAC access in providing access to cloud resources. Segregation and isolation of the resources using resource groups, virtual networks is key!
Utilise the security monitoring tools provided by cloud services provider to monitor the solution. Most of the basic functionality is free, such as Azure’s security centre.
In general, always divide the security focus areas into a matrix where rows are networks, compute, storage, applications, databases, and columns are data encryption at rest, encryption at transit, authentication and authorization etc; this will allow focussing on each security cell.
Carry out security risk assessment during the design phase to ensure the design has the appropriate security controls in place to mitigate possible risks.
Nevertheless, problems can arise when storing data in the cloud. “Services & data in the cloud is accessible from the internet. Unless proper controls in place, your users can access and download the data from anywhere in the world,” warns Varma.

Cloud storage security
“The majority of clients require their data to be encrypted in the cloud. Although cloud supports ‘bring your own key’ options, these encryption keys are stored in cloud providers key vaults. So, there is a very narrow chance that cloud providers can access those keys and decrypt the data. It’s also vital to note that cloud providers have very strict governance and accreditations in place to mitigate the same.”

Cloud providers generally keep their cloud services up-to-date with advancements in technology, according to Varma. “On the other end, many of the clients’ data centers he has worked within the past have out-of-date IT infrastructure systems & applications which takes a lot of time and money to replace and are prone to attacks”, he adds.

Varma also advises that you must ask your service provider the following questions about cloud storage security:

What is the authentication and authorization approach to cloud services?
How do you implement access controls for cloud services?
What’s the approach to secure transit and rest data?
What is preventive security monitoring are in place against risks and threats?
Are their solution adheres to such as cyber essentials, cloud security principles, ISO 27002?

Businesses Expansion of Attack Surfaces

One of the main reasons cyber risk increases exponentially is the rapid expansion of attack surfaces. In these places, software programs are vulnerable to attack or probe by an adversary. According to the SANS Institute, attack surfaces can include any part of a company’s infrastructure that exposes its networks and systems to the outside, from servers and open ports to SQLs, email authentication, and even employees with “access to sensitive information.” It can also include user input via keyboard or mouse, network traffic, and external hardware that is not protected by cyber hardening technology.

It would be easy to blame the Internet of Things (IoT) for expanding attacks, as Intel projects two billion smart devices worldwide by 2020. But in reality, the IoT is only part of the attack surface epidemic.

According to Cybersecurity Ventures, there are now 111 billion new lines of code written each year, introducing vulnerabilities both known and unknown. Not to be overlooked as a flourishing attack vector are humans, which some argue are both the most important and the weakest link in the cyberattack kill chain. In fact, in many cybersecurity circles, there is a passionate and ongoing debate regarding just how much burden businesses should put on employees to prevent and detect cyber threats. However, what is not up for debate open is just how vulnerable humans are to intentionally or unintentionally open the digital door for threat actors to walk in. This is most evident because 9 out of 10 cyberattacks begin with some form of email phishing targeting workers with mixed levels of cybersecurity training and awareness.

Critical Infrastructure Protection Remains a Challenge

Critical infrastructure, often powered by SCADA systems and equipment now identified as part of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), is a significant contributor to attack surface expansion. Major attacks targeting these organizations occur more from memory corruption errors and buffer overflows exploits than from spear-phishing or email spoofing and tends to be the motive of nation-states and cyber terrorists more so than generic hackers.

“Industrial devices are designed to have a long life span, but most legacy equipment still in use was not originally built to achieve automation and connectivity.” The IIoT does provide many efficiencies and cost-savings benefits to companies in which operational integrity, confidentiality, and availability are of the utmost importance. Still, introducing technology into heavy machinery and equipment that wasn’t built to communicate outside of a facility has proven challenging. The concept of IT/OT integration, which is meant to merge the physical and digital security of corporations and facilities, has failed to reduce vulnerabilities in a way that significantly reduces risk. As a result, attacks seeking to exploit critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, such as WannaCry, have become the rule and not the exception.

To date, ARE CYBERCRIMINALS winning? 

Critical infrastructure cybersecurity has relied too much upon network monitoring and anomaly detection to detect suspicious traffic before it turns problematic. The challenge with this approach is that it is reactionary and only effective after an adversary has breached some level of defense.

We take an entirely different approach, focusing on prevention by denying malware the uniformity it needs to propagate. We use a binary randomization technique that shuffles the basic constructs of a program, known as basic blocks, to produce functionally identical code but legally unique. When an attacker develops an exploit for a known vulnerability in a program, it is helpful to know where all the code is located so that they can repurpose it to do their bidding. Binary randomization renders that prior knowledge useless, as each instance of a program has code in different locations.

One way to visualize the concept of binary randomization is to picture the Star Wars universe at the time when Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance set off to destroy the Death Star. The Rebel Alliance had the blueprints to the Death Star and used those blueprints to find its only weakness. Luke set off in his X-Wing and delivered a proton torpedo directly to the weak spot in the Death Star, destroying it. In this scenario, the Death Star is a vulnerable computer program, and Luke is an adversary trying to exploit said computer program.

Now imagine that the Galactic Empire built 100 Death Stars, protected by RunSafe’s new Death Star Weakness Randomization. This protection moves the weakness to a different place on each Death Star. Now imagine you are Luke, flying full speed toward the flaw in the Death Star, chased by TIE fighters, only to find that the weakfaultnot where the blueprint showed. The Rebel attack fails, and the Galactic Empire celebrates by destroying another planet. Like the Death Star scenario above, code protected with binary randomization will still contain vulnerabilities. Still, an attacker’s ability to successfully exploit that vulnerability on multiple targets becomes much more difficult.

Cyber Criminals Loves the Cloud (Hackers Cloud Life)

Are hackers smarter and more creative than cyber guardians? This is becoming the eternal question of the digital age. While we would like to think the protection of customer passwords and personal credentials is the job of IT experts, reports of recent data breaches now suggest we are losing the battle against online criminals. The situation at hand can be likened to a carjacker who enters a parking lot and simply strolls to the stall where all the keys are kept. The parking guard is mysteriously missing, and the keys are ripe for the taking, even to the big, expensive vehicles. This is essentially the situation hackers are now enjoying on the Cloud—a relatively unguarded and highly accessible environment.

Organizational growth and development have led to increased use of the Cloud, which has exacerbated the problem of compromised user data. Companies have essentially transferred VPN and cloud access credentials to available cloud storage. Hackers are sending bots to scour GitHub, the source code administration framework, searching for advanced access keys to Amazon Web Services and other cloud frameworks. In 2015, one indiscreet developer woke to discover his stolen keys were being utilized to run 140 AWS servers mining bitcoin. Indeed, even U.S. Intelligence facts, including security keys to access “distributed intelligence systems,” were also left exposed to the public suggest Bay Area security firm, UpGuard.

Further, even if credentials aren’t left in a discoverable location, hackers can break into a network and find unprotected or unencrypted keys lying around to gain access. In spite of the dangers, developers are still consistently putting away the digital assets and resources and even client data in the source code, setup documents, and different random, unencrypted areas. Not like run of the mill user who can remember their passwords or store them with a protected secret word, engineers and IT professionals regularly need to keep security credentials where automated programs can find them. What’s more, the sensitive information of ordinary clients is also being inadvertently left unattended on some organization networks, where hackers don’t have to work very hard for access.

SECURING THE CLOUD

Cloud managers are struggling to stop the leak of critical data. Sophisticated new cybersecurity tools designed to safely store these important credentials in a legitimate, automated way are looking to revamp accessibility by scanning uploaded files to the cloud storage to ensure passwords and keys aren’t exposed. According to industry experts, this effort is doing much to turn the tide of cybercrime.

Cloud managers are also trying to close the entryway leading to the exposure of more basic data. Refined new cybersecurity tools want to safely store these sorts of credentials in a genuine way that grants access to automated procedures but not hackers.

Armon Dadgar, founder and co-CTO of San Francisco-based software company HashiCorp explains, “Everyone knew this was a bad thing to do. It wasn’t like anyone had an illusion that keeping these credentials in plain text was smart or sane, but no one had a better answer.”

Amazon launched AWS Secrets Manager last month, its own credential management tool. This was followed by Microsoft’s Azure Key Vault which securely stores, monitors, and controls access to this kind of data. But even as these tools become available, companies with avid developers, all of whom have a wide array of remote tools using credentials, are being continually challenged by security issues. Christoffer Fjellström, a developer at Swedish security firm Detectify says, “The main problem is that companies really don’t have policies for it or they don’t follow up and make sure those policies are followed.”

Recent hacks have made it clear that few organizations can hope to keep their networks entirely free from intrusion. Dadgar goes on to explain, “Many companies paid less attention to the security of data within their firewalls. In that world, things like secret management were just less important. Does it matter that you have my database credential if you’re not on my network?”

Other new tools help detect if secure data is being sent and stored where it doesn’t belong. UpGuard, known for its frequent role in detecting leaks tied to data stored on insecure cloud machines, has released BreachSight which scours the internet for its clients’ exposed code, credentials, personally identifiable information, and other sensitive data.

“You might have this world-class team, but the project manager has an online Kanban board sitting out in the open that he’s using for notes, and it’s full of API keys. But nobody thought to look for it because the company believes everything’s internal,” co-founder and co-CEO Mike Baukes says. “It’s examples like that, which are things happening in the real world, that nobody’s had an answer for until now.”

Amazon has also offered a service called Amazon Macie, which uses machine learning to detect unusual access patterns in cloud storage and uploads of potentially sensitive data like access keys. Amazon also released open source software to prevent the accidental storing of passwords and keys to source code repositories, while other developers have offered similar tools to scrub credentials from existing code. According to Fast Company, those types of tools will be automatically provided as part of cloud computing contracts, just like standard seatbelts in a new car.

A Step-by-Step Guide to a Successful SIEM Deployment

SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) deployment based on firsthand experience implementing SIEM for a broad range of customers.

Discovery Phase - Laying the Groundwork

1. Review the organizational security posture and the initial business case for SIEM. Then prioritize the goals of the SIEM implementation from the most critical to the optional—taking into account the tasks that must be performed in order to support the effort.
2. Review in detail the organizational security policy to consider the intent behind the policy. Separate those policies from a priority standpoint. Determine what’s critical, what’s necessary for mandatory compliance and what policies are best practices to ensure a secure environment.
3. Identify current controls that are auditing those policies to determine compliance level. Ideally, a SIEM implementation should not be the first time the organization identifies that its security policy or how it’s implemented isn’t working according to plan. The reality is that these deployments often expose gaps in security execution that must be remediated before those elements can be integrated into a daily alerting and reporting structure.  
4. Identify a smaller representative subset of the current policy and devices where SIEM can be applied and enough data can be gathered to determine what changes need to occur.
    

Pilot Phase - Beginning the Implementation

The primary goal of this phase is to determine which specific SIEM project goals can be implemented in order to establish initial ROI while creating a baseline operational model and run-book.

1. The lessons learned from the discovery phase are used to implement a larger subset of technology.
2. The assumptions developed during the discovery phase are tested in real time.
3. The list of devices should be expanded to incorporate a wider set of technologies and numbers.
4. The information developed from this phase is used to determine the final steps of controlled deployment and maturity phase.

Controlled Deployment Phase - Building Capacity

The primary goal of this phase is to develop a deployment workflow that enables the organization to build capacity as full deployment approaches. This phase also serves as the initial production test run and the completion of operational run-books necessary to manage a full deployment.

Maturity Phase - Continuing to Evolve

Significant work must be performed in order to mature the organization’s security posture and implement the finer points of the deployment. This phase never has an end point—since SIEM must continually evolve.

Cyber-Digital Task Force

The Department of Justice’s internal “Cyber-Digital Task Force,” created by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in February, will release its first-ever public report later this month at the Aspen Institute’s annual Security Forum, a department spokesperson told CyberScoop.

The report is expected to detail a series of security recommendations that the government should consider to protect future U.S. elections from a myriad of different threats, including foreign hacking attempts.

A statement by the DOJ previously explained that the Task Force will “prioritize its study of efforts to interfere with our elections; efforts to interfere with our critical infrastructure; the use of the Internet to spread violent ideologies and to recruit followers; the mass theft of corporate, governmental, and private information; the use of technology to avoid or frustrate law enforcement; and the mass exploitation of computers and other digital devices to attack American citizens and businesses.”

When Sessions launched the group earlier this year, he requested that an initial report be completed by June 30. The recommendations were submitted ahead of time, according to DOJ spokesperson Ian Prior. The answers are currently being reviewed ahead of publication.

The DOJ’s disclosure was made hours after the Democratic National Committee (DNC) issued a press release criticizing the department and Trump administration for missing various cybersecurity policy deadlines, including the June 30 submission. The agency contends that it in fact made the deadline, although the publication won’t occur for a few weeks. The Aspen Security Forum begins on July 18.

The creation of the Cybersecurity Task Force on Feb. 20 came less than a week after Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted a group of Russian internet trolls for interfering in U.S. politics. The Russians allegedly ran an extensive social media campaign that worked to trick American voters in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, the indictment claims.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to make “an exclusive policy announcement” on July 19 at the Aspen Institute event.