AUSCERT Week in Review for 11th June 2021

Greetings,

This week, we’re pleased to share the following blog piece by our AUSCERT2021 Member Organisation of the Year – team ATO (Australian Taxation Office). Congratulations ATO, and in particular to Cody and Daniel for their efforts and representation of the ATO team at the conference, a well-deserved win! In the coming weeks, we will be sharing a couple more of these blog articles featuring our other award winners from AUSCERT2021.

On the topic of the AUSCERT2021 conference, as per tradition, we’re slowly releasing the various recordings of our annual conference presentations and talks on our YouTube channel, please feel free to view them here.

We hope folks were able to get through all of June 2021’s Patch Tuesday fixes. Please refer to our highlighted bulletins and articles below. A quick shout out to our colleague Narayan who’d processed 74 security bulletins in a single day on Wednesday this week, no small feat. Well done Narayan!

Last but not least, we’re excited to share Episode 2 of the AUSCERT “Share today, save tomorrow” podcast series. Episode 2 features Lukasz Gogolkiewicz, Head of Corporate Security at SEEK and is titled “Crossing Into The Blue Team In Cyber Security.” Be sure to check it out. Our podcast is also available via Spotify, Apple Podcast and Google Podcast.

Until next week everyone, have a great weekend.

Microsoft June 2021 Patch Tuesday fixes 6 exploited zero-days, 50 flaws
Date: 2021-06-08
Author: Bleeping Computer

[See related bulletins ASB-2021.0114 through to 119, of note is the ALERT for ASB-2021.0116.]
Today is Microsoft’s June 2021 Patch Tuesday, and with it comes fixes for seven zero-day vulnerabilities and a total of 50 flaws, so Windows admins will be scrambling to get devices secured.
Microsoft has fixed 50 vulnerabilities with today’s update, with five classified as Critical and forty-five as Important.

Scammers capitalise on pandemic as Australians lose record $851 million to scams
Date: 2021-06-07
Author: ACCC

Australians lost over $851 million to scams in 2020, a record amount, as scammers took advantage of the pandemic to con unsuspecting people, according to the ACCC’s latest Targeting Scams report released today.
The report compiles data from Scamwatch, ReportCyber, other government agencies and 10 banks and financial intermediaries, and is based on more than 444,000 reports.
Investment scams accounted for the biggest losses, with $328 million, and made up more than a third of total losses. Romance scams were the next biggest category, costing Australians $131 million, while payment redirection scams resulted in $128 million of losses.

Govt to mandate the Essential Eight cyber security controls
Date: 2021-06-09
Author: iTnews

The federal government is set to mandate the Essential Eight cyber security controls for all 98 non-corporate Commonwealth entities, four years after they were first developed.
The Attorney-General’s Department revealed the step change in government cyber security policy in its response to last year’s parliamentary committee report into cyber resilience.

The hard truth about ransomware: we aren’t prepared, it’s a battle with new rules, and it hasn’t…
Date: 2021-06-09
Author: Medium

[Note: this is a lengthy read, approx. 20 minutes, but is considered by our Principal Analyst as a thoughtful and timely contribution to the conversation about the modern ransomware threat.]
We are rebuilding entire economies around technology, while having some fundamental issues reducing foundations to quicksand. What we are seeing currently is a predictable crisis, which hasn’t yet near peaked. I’m not sure people generally understand the situation yet. The turning circle to taking action is large. With this post, I hope to lay out the reality, and some harsh truths people need to hear.

Australian Federal Police and FBI nab criminal underworld figures in worldwide sting using encrypted app
Date: 2021-06-08
Author: ABC News

More than 200 members of Australia’s mafia and bikie underworld have been charged in the nation’s largest-ever crime sting, police say.
As part of a three-year collaboration between the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), authorities say underworld figures were tricked into communicating via an encrypted app that had been designed by police.
The app, known as AN0M, was used by organised crime gangs around the world to plan executions, mass drug importations and money laundering.
Authorities say they were able to read up to 25 million messages in real-time.

JBS paid $11 million to REvil ransomware, $22.5M first demanded
Date: 2021-06-10
Author: Bleeping Computer

JBS, the world’s largest beef producer, has confirmed that they paid an $11 million ransom after the REvil ransomware operation initially demanded $22.5 million.
On May 31, JBS was forced to shut down some of its food production sites after the REvil ransomware operators breached their network and encrypted some of its North American and Australian IT systems.

ESB-2021.2019 – Intel Products: Multiple vulnerabilities

Intel released firmware updates to address multiple vulnerabilities.

ESB-2021.1994 – BIG-IP (all modules): Multiple vulnerabilities

A flaw was found in Nettle Cryptographic Library which affects F5 BIG-IP modules.

ESB-2021.1984 – Adobe Photoshop: Execute arbitrary code/commands – Remote with user interaction

Adobe has released updates for Photoshop for Windows and macOS to resolve a critical RCE vulnerability.

ASB-2021.0116 – ALERT Microsoft Windows: Multiple vulnerabilities

Microsoft has released its monthly security patch update for the month of June 2021.

ESB-2021.2097 – Apache HTTP Server: Multiple vulnerabilities

Multiple vulnerabilities have been resolved in Apache HTTP server 2.4.48.

Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend!

The AUSCERT team