![Cyber Security News & Tips by Glenda R. Snodgrass for The Net Effect](newsletters/images/masthead.png)
March 12, 2024
Good morning, everyone!
This week’s critical vulnerabilities:
Patch All the Things! |
It can happen to anyone
Last week, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced 1 that two systems were breached last month by attackers exploiting vulnerabilities in Ivanti products:
“This is a reminder that any organization can be affected by a cyber vulnerability and having an incident response plan in place is a necessary component of resilience.”
Boy, ain't it though? Remember the core functions of the NIST CSF? Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover (well, they added Governance in the newly-released version 2.0). Sometimes Identify and Protect aren't enough, especially in the case of a zero-day vulnerability, so you have to Detect the problem, and be able to Respond & Recover -- because you have a plan in place and everyone knows how to follow it, right?
Since the most common incident is accidentally installing malware on your computer, I'll address that.
Detect: Recognize the signs. The most common signs that you may have malware include:
- Suddenly the device is running much slower than usual
- Hard drive and/or fans start running, or running high, for no apparent reason
- Inexplicable noise (talking or music)
- A popup box that flashes and quickly disappears
- An attachment or link that won't open or appears to do nothing
Respond -- quickly. If any of these things occur, especially just after opening an email or while surfing the web (including social media apps, not just the browser), follow these steps:
- Disconnect the device from the Internet. If it has an ethernet cable, unplug that. If it's on wireless, turn off wireless. If you can't turn it off, and if you have physical control over the wireless access point, unplug that. The important thing is to cut off the malware's connection to the Internet, and to isolate the potentially-infected device from other devices on the network. (Note: If you cannot disconnect the device, turn it off. Pull the power cable if necessary. But this only the LAST RESORT if you are unable to disconnect it, and only after step 2 below.)
- Take a picture of the screen.
- Send the picture to your tech support person.
Recover. As soon as the infection is cleaned up, restore data from backup. You are making regular backups, right?
Stay cyber safe this week!
![Glenda R. Snodgrass](images/GRS-talking-200.png)
Glenda R. Snodgrass
grs@theneteffect.com
(251) 433-0196 x107
https://www.theneteffect.com
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