Can SMBs Break the Microsoft XP Chains that Bind?

May 25, 2019/in Managed Cybersecurity/by Ostra Cybersecurity

Stuck with old technology?

Microsoft offers zero-day exploit patches for an 18 year old operating system. Ostra can do better.

The majority of businesses, industrial control centers, and hospitals don’t use Microsoft XP by choice, but a lot of them still do. Old systems are particularly vulnerable because known exploits still work, and unsupported operating systems such as Windows XP are virtually unprotected from new exploits. That was the message from Microsoft last week after a patch was released to protect Microsoft XP and Server 2012 R2 systems from yet another global attack.

XP was released in 2001 and gained an unprecedented foothold in the market. This was an era when companies didn’t update their machines for years on end, so for nearly a decade XP was not just an operating system. It was the operating system. During this same time, technology was starting to intertwine with every aspect of how businesses operated.

The net result was a generation of critical control systems and infrastructure in industrial operations, transportation and healthcare built on the bedrock of Windows XP. Keep in mind that in 2001, cyber warfare was not necessarily on everyone’s minds, so nearly two decades later we might be in for a perfect storm. The World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Risks Report named cyber attacks as a top cause of disruption in the next five years, coming only after natural disasters and extreme weather events.

If facing the future with a zero-day XP exploit patch in hand makes you feel squeamish, turn to Ostra. Ostra’s Enterprise Grade Security Solution provides protection for the ball-and-chain antiquated operating systems inherited from the past and the growing risks they present. Microsoft XP might be our decades old Hobson’s choice, but conventional security solutions are not. Ostra is the security solution when the future must include the past

Ostra Cybersecurity

As Your Trusted Cybersecurity Team, Ostra makes cybersecurity simple and accessible to businesses of all sizes. Ostra provides its partners and their clients with a multi-layered, comprehensive and fully managed Security as a Service.

Unpatched and Vulnerable

May 17, 2019/in Managed Cybersecurity/by Ostra Cybersecurity

Windows XP and Server 2012:

Ostra’s solution keeps unpatched systems safe.

Two years after WannaCry crippled computer systems across the globe there are still nearly 1.7 million unpatched exposed endpoints. More than 400,000 of these vulnerable devices are in businesses, industrial control networks and hospitals across the United States. Stolen NSA hacking tools used to propagate the WannaCry attack pose an ongoing threat to these vulnerable systems, and the potentially millions of devices connected to those systems. Ostra’s Security Systems prevents this threat exposure.

Reasons these systems have gone unpatched for two years involve logistics, risk, and platform dependency. Many industrial control settings run large scale physical processes 24/7 so interrupting operations to test and install patches is difficult or impossible. In healthcare settings the unknown effects patching on complex systems introduces risk to patient care. And many proprietary systems across all sectors may not be compatible with newer Windows products, forcing the ongoing use of vulnerable legacy operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows Server 2012 R2.

The NSA hacking tools are still at large and continue to deliver damage to unprotected systems. The cryptocurrency “WannaMine” attack and the Atlanta ransomware attack are high profile cases of cybercrime which used NSA exploits on systems that remained vulnerable long after the WannaCry wake up call.

In the post-WannaCry era, business, industry and healthcare entities knew their systems were vulnerable but had limited options to protect them. Ostra has changed that. Unpatched systems can be protected without the accompanying logistical, risk, and platform dependency struggles. Ostra’s Enterprise Grade Security Solution protects exposed endpoints without patching, allowing older systems to safely operate in peace.

Ostra Cybersecurity

As Your Trusted Cybersecurity Team, Ostra makes cybersecurity simple and accessible to businesses of all sizes. Ostra provides its partners and their clients with a multi-layered, comprehensive and fully managed Security as a Service.

When Hospitals Need Bandaids

May 17, 2019/in Managed Cybersecurity/by Ostra Cybersecurity

Infection Prevention:

Hospitals are vulnerable to cybercrime. Ostra is the solution.

For the past two days, IT teams in hospitals across the country have gathered in command centers to secure older devices from a security vulnerability. This came at the urging of the Microsoft Security Response Center, which discovered the “zero day” threat on Tuesday.

When vulnerabilities are detected in newer operating systems, patches are applied through Microsoft’s automatic updates. But in many cases, hospital equipment runs on older versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems that are no longer supported with new patches. And while the obvious answer may be to update those systems, often it is a difficult problem for hospitals to keep current with technology. Sometimes continuously updating equipment is highly risky or cost prohibitive. In other instances, the long approval and installation process of medical equipment and implantable devices results in implementation of technology that is already old “out of the box.”

The net result leaves hospitals vulnerable to threats such as the one that surfaced this week targeting an older operating system feature called RDP (remote desktop protocol). According to Microsoft, this threat is highly likely to be incorporated in malware in the near future. Like its very damaging predecessor “WannaCry,” malware exploiting this vulnerability will be particularly dangerous because it won’t require access to the computer it is infecting.

While many hospitals handle vulnerability countermeasures as a part of the normal security workload, the margin for error is thin. It only takes one affected computer in a network for a “wormable” infection to spread. Ostra’s cybersecurity solution can prevent outside threats from getting in, and can provide configuration support to isolate older devices to further reduce risk. While it maybe strategically impossible to eliminate older devices from a hospital setting, Ostra can make sure older devices in hospitals don’t become the cyber equivalent of Typhoid Mary.

Ostra Cybersecurity

As Your Trusted Cybersecurity Team, Ostra makes cybersecurity simple and accessible to businesses of all sizes. Ostra provides its partners and their clients with a multi-layered, comprehensive and fully managed Security as a Service.

Is Anti-Virus Enough Security For Small Business?

May 17, 2019/in Managed Cybersecurity/by Ostra Cybersecurity

It’s Not Me, Anti-Virus, It’s you:

Why an imminent break-up with anti-virus as a security solution is a good idea.

Small and medium business owners may want to re-think their belief that anti-virus gives them the protection they need after three major AV companies were breached by a high profile Russian hacking group. 30 terabytes of stolen internal corporate documents and anti-virus source code are for sale in criminal marketplaces, and this isn’t the first time reputed security companies have failed to keep criminal hackers out of their networks. Consider this the bold exclamation point to a long-overdue conclusion that traditional AV security is far from the protection small and medium business owners need.

This all played out in March 2019 when a Russian hacking group, Fxmsp stated they “could provide exclusive information stolen from three top antivirus companies located in the United States.” This group of cyber-criminals has a long-standing reputation for selling sensitive information stolen from high profile government and corporate entities. Over the last two years they have sold verifiable corporate breaches for a profit of nearly $1 million. A threat research firm, AdvIntel, verified that the group had source code related to the companies anti-virus software development and notified “the potential victim entities” which were Symantec, Trend Micro, and McAfee.

What happens next is something anti-virus consumers should pay close attention to. Symantec performed a self-assessment and downplayed any potential damage. Similarly Trend Micro also claimed this was a low risk breach. McAfee neither confirmed nor denied the breach and only commented they are aware of the threat claim and are taking steps to monitor and investigate. So the three major AV vendors that were breached all promised transparency during a self assessment of impact and downplayed the damage. This type of response is straight out of the Breach 101 playbook, so as the truth comes out overtime it will be “old news” that doesn’t need to be covered and everyone will return to business as usual. Except these are the guys selling cyber-crime consumer protection.

So what does that protection look like in the future? It’s hard to say how these three vendors will prevent the stolen source code from being exploited. Third party endpoint security is a sizable attack surface because systems have to trust and empower it to keep them safe. Maybe it’s time for small and medium business consumers to re-evaluate that trust and their relationship with anti-virus, and move on to enterprise-grade solutions like Ostra.

Ostra Cybersecurity

As Your Trusted Cybersecurity Team, Ostra makes cybersecurity simple and accessible to businesses of all sizes. Ostra provides its partners and their clients with a multi-layered, comprehensive and fully managed Security as a Service.