News
Comment from Varonis – Russia has been caught hacking into coronavirus vaccine projects
July 2020 by Matt Lock, Technical Director UK at Varonis
The comment is attributable
to my client Matt Lock, Technical Director, UK at Varonis.
“The method of attack is absolutely in line with the kill chain
spearphishing to drop a pay load, malware used to run reconnaissance to
find sensitive data, and then finally exfiltration by SSH, email, Web or
DNS. They’re hoping to fly under the radar and avoid detection.
We’ve known these research centres have been targets for some months
now. I hope the researchers stopped any data loss and detected these
patterns of behaviour – there’s no real excuse not to nowadays.
Hackers are like sharks in the water – and critical data is like
blood. Organisations are quick to spin up infrastructure to support
massive research projects and remote collaboration, but cybersecurity
and protecting those critical assets is often an afterthought. Many
won’t realise they’ve been hit until the information has already
walked out the door, or in this case, quietly siphoned off. Now that the
IOCs are available, organisations – whether they’re working on
cutting-edge research to battle the coronavirus or other medical or
technological breakthroughs — must ensure they’re protected.”
