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 An agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Sacramento Field Office presented on current Cyber Threat Trends and their impact. The presentation provided an overview of the FBI’s priorities, roles, and responsibilities.
The FBI assists businesses or organizations with their cyber security. It is good to establish a relationship with them before a cyber security event. The FBI can give you increased optics into nefarious cyber activity, and can maintain a sense of confidence with consumers. Some of the threats that our FBI agent speaker described to us include: - Weak passwords or using the same password for multiple accounts can make the hacker's job easier.
- Card skimming. Thin overlay card skimming devices can be added to ATM, gas station or other card readers. They can read information from your debit or credit card that can be sent by Bluetooth or cell phone radio waves to the perpetrator's collection device. Tiny cameras can also be attached to the ATM machine to view the PIN that you key in. Be careful of any such devices that don't look like a professionally manufactured product. Cash is always a safe alternative, and credit cards offer you more safeguards than debit cards.
- The SolarWinds Incident: SolarWinds is a supply chain software company. At least nine government agencies and 100 private sector companies have been breached in what's being described as one of the most sophisticated and well-planned operations that involved injecting a malicious implant into the Orion Software Platform with the goal of compromising its customers. An intern with a password of solarwinds123 that he inadvertently made public may have enabled the break-in of SolarWinds IT systems.
- Hackers from Russia, Ukraine and China targeted and breached security at companies such as Target (2013), Home Depot (2014) and Sony (2014).
- The Internet of Things (IoTs): There are so many devices connected (more than 20 Billion in 2020) to the internet that present potential vulnerabilities. For example, Ring Cameras have been hacked so that bad guys can get access to the video footage in the device.
The agent recommended two factor authentication on our important accounts. The typical version of this is that after you successfully supply your password, the system texts you with another code that you need to enter to gain access to your account. Dave Sargent asked whether self-driving cars would become a target of hackers. The agent hadn't heard of such attacks yet, but that it was certainly possible, since they are connected to the internet. It was a fascinating presentation that provoked a lot of thought. We can't disclose the name of the presenting FBI agent for security reasons. |
