DailyPost 2127
ENTRUST – HOW DO WE GET BACK DIGITAL TRUST?
Hacking is the new normal, a phrase which has been oft repeated, but has not led to any commendable improvement, in the cyber security scenario of the world. Might be the victims or the users have been improving on this front, but the hackers have been sharpening their skills with leaps and bounds. They are also practicing and getting the scalps at the same proficiency. We are all at risk is an understatement. SolarWinds was an all-comprehensive attack took the world by surprise. Espionage and at what level, and the breach to detection time, showing no diminishing trend, is a huge area of concern.
On the ransomware front, we have well known cases of Colonial Pipelines and JBS. Later we find an IT company being hit by ransomware in a big way – Kaseya. The cyber security world is getting topsy turvy. When the targets from manufacturing to oil to energy moves to IT and onwards to the cyber security companies, we rely on, then where does the digital trust come from. In the SolarWinds hack one of victims was FireEye leading Cyber Security company globally. The company confirmed that they had been infected with the malware when they saw the infection in customer systems. The breach was first detected by FireEye.
Now we have the news, we would have been better without. Digital security giant Entrust has been breached by ransomware gang. Even for them to keep the company safe is an uphill task. Entrust focus on online trust and identity management, services ranging from encrypted communications, secure digital payments and ID issuance systems. It’s confirmed that its network was breached and data was stolen from internal systems. Depending on the nature of data stolen it could impact large number of critical, sensitive organizations using Entrust. It includes large number of US government agencies. A source had told Bleeping Computer that Entrust was breached on 18th June and corporate data was stolen.
It was made public only recently after a security researcher Dominic Alvieri tweeted a screenshot of security notice sent to Entrust’s customers on July 6th 2022. These hacks can even put the cyber security companies into hiding. The CEO confirms the 18th June date and that they have been working tirelessly to remediate the situation since then. He claims as per the ongoing investigation there are no indications to the operations, or security of the products and services being impacted. It is still not known if it was purely corporate data or customers and vendors data as well. Their products and services are run in separate, air-gapped environments. Entrust is working with a leading cyber security firm and law enforcement to investigate the attack. The ransomware gang and the status of ransom remains unknown.
JUST FEW COMPANIES CANNOT PROVIDE DIGITAL TRUST; CAN’T WE RESPOND THE WAY WE RESPOND TO TERRORISM.
Sanjay Sahay