Nation-State Cyber APT Attacks are Increasing According to the US FBI

Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) cyber actors continue to target sensitive information stored on U.S. commercial and government networks through cyber espionage,” the FBI said a May 11 notification. The term “APT actor” is a euphemism for state-sponsored or highly sophisticated cyber attackers, usually involving connections to foreign militaries or intelligence services. Two cyber security researchers who examined the FBI notice listing details of the cyber attacks said the tactics appeared similar to those used in the past by Chinese hackers, including the suspects behind the massive theft of records on 22 million federal workers from the Office of Personnel Management.The FBI listed seven major Internet server software types hacked in the past year, including two Adobe ColdFusion security flaws. ColdFusion software is used with large databases. Other attacks involved Apache Tomcat, JBoss, and Cacti, software used for remote data logging. Drupal servers used to operate a large number of websites around the world, including corporate and government sites, also were compromised. Joomla content-management software also was compromised, the FBI said. A seventh compromise affected Oracle’s E-Business Suite software, used for customer management and supply-chain management. State-sponsored hackers exploited vulnerabilities in all seven types of software, and “some of these vulnerabilities are also exploited by cyber criminals in addition to state-sponsored operators,” the FBI said. How effective can pro-active patch management be in preventing this brand of cyber warfare? Share your assessment with the Cloud and Cyber Security Center: http://cloudandcybersecurity.blogspot.com/