Skip to content

Understand the Cyberattack that Affected Kaseya

On July 2, a Russian group of hackers exploited a flaw in the Kaseya company’s management software, affecting its systems and causing problems for it and its customers.

The massive cyberattack affected around 1,500 businesses in 17 countries. The attackers promised to return access to the data in exchange for 70 million dollars, equivalent to 364 million reais.

Hackers promised to release a decryptor so that all files could be recovered in at least an hour after paying the ransom.

Known as “REvil”, the organization claimed responsibility for the virtual attack on Kaseya. It was also responsible for the invasion that halted production at JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, in June this year.

Domino Effect

Headquartered in Florida, United States, Kaseya is responsible for the remote monitoring and management program used by more than 40,000 companies. Of these, only 60 were directly affected by the cyberattack.

However, as many of Kaseya’s customers provide services for other businesses, the systems are interconnected in a network.

This connection resulted in a domino effect, as the installed malware quickly spread and encrypted the files it found along the way.

The supermarket chain Coop, in Sweden, had to suspend the operation of its stores because it was unable to use the cash register system, which was managed by one of Kaseya’s client companies.

How Did the Invasion Take Place?

The type of virus was ransomware that can encrypt computer files. Access is only granted upon payment of a ransom to the hacker, that is, it is like a data hijacking in the digital world.

In this type of cyberattack, ransomware infiltrates frequently used software and spreads as systems are updated.

Encryption is the practice of encoding data, causing it to no longer have the original format and, therefore, no longer be readable by its owners.

Files can only be decrypted and returned to their original format through the use of a specific decryption key. It is for this key that Russian hackers ask for the ransom, as without it the data becomes useless.

Measures

This can be considered the biggest cyber-attack with ransomware of all time, as it reached a proportion never seen before in similar cases.

Kaseya asked customers using its system administration platform, VSA, to immediately shut down their servers to try to prevent the possibility of their information being captured by the cyberattack.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), among other US officials, assisted in the investigations.

US President Joe Biden has warned Russian leader Vladimir Putin to take action against hackers who have been operating in Russia for a long time.

On July 12th, Kaseya has reported that it had fully recovered the servers. These attacks are an increasingly profitable way to take hostages in the virtual universe.

How Does the Russian Group Operate?

REvil, also called Sodinokibi, is one of the best-known hacker gangs today. It operates with dozens of individuals in a “professional” regime with the division of tasks.

While one part of the group invades the systems, the other is responsible for constantly maintaining the ransomware, managing the group’s financials, and negotiating the rescue of the data with the victims.

Hackers drive the attack into double extortion mode, which occurs when Internet hackers take control of the network, extract important and sensitive data, and activate ransomware that encrypts victims’ data.

Then, they ask for a ransom in cash or bitcoins so that they return control of the data and do not disclose the information obtained illegally.

The group explored a series of “zero-days” in the product that allows it to bypass its authentication, arbitrarily upload files, and install pirated software.

With this, they can use a series of tactics and tools to move around the network and have access to all the files that are present.

A tool from Kaseya itself may have been used to take control of the system and activate the malicious software, as it has high-level access privileges on the machines, passing in an authorized way through antivirus.

The exact form used by the group is still unknown, however, the flaws of the American company’s protection to its systems became clear.

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About Segura®
Segura® strive to ensure the sovereignty of companies over actions and privileged information. To this end, we work against data theft through traceability of administrator actions on networks, servers, databases and a multitude of devices. In addition, we pursue compliance with auditing requirements and the most demanding standards, including PCI DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, ISO 27001 and HIPAA.

Avant Services: How to become a Safetica Platinum Partner in less than a year

Brazilian service provider Avant Services managed to achieve the Platinum Partner level in cooperation with Safetica within a year. Furthermore, his investments returned approximately in 6 months.

How to reach the goal that could seem to be very challenging? We have talked with Renan Fernandes, CEO & founder of the company.

Why have you decided to partner with Safetica?

We founded Avant two years ago. We started to cooperate with Esy (our distributor) almost immediately. Alberto (Esy) mentioned that they have signed a contract with a company with a very promising tool called Safetica. A few weeks afterwards, the Covid Pandemic was declared, and many companies started to adopt the Home Office approach, which forced many of them to manage user behavior and prevent possible data loss. During this transition, we understood the real potential of Safetica DLP and therefore we started to work in an organized and systematic way to present the solution in Brazil and adhere to the needs of our customers.

Why and how did you decide to do the investment and become Platinum partner so fast?

Due to the Pandemic many companies started to look for a solution such as Safetica. At the same time, the LGPD in Brazil begun to apply, therefore the market potential became huge! 

Thus, it was necessary to study Safetica’s tool, invest in people, processes, and training so we were prepared to be able to demonstrate, sell and serve our customers with quality.

I would like to highlight that the alignment of the Technical Team with the Commercial Team is very important. What helped us a lot during this period was Safetica’s roadmap/materials and the support of our distributor, Esy.

When did your investment in Safetica return? Did you have to hire somebody?

ROI approximately in 6 months. It was very fast! At the beginning, it was not necessary to employ anybody new, however, I think it is important to have a dedicated person in the team, it will make things easier.

Were there any obstacles with achieving Platinum partner level?

I believe that the biggest challenge we faced was the timing. When Safetica entered the Brazilian market, it was full of uncertainties. In addition to that, our company structure has been offering different product profiles (not DLP), which also required our adaptation.

Things started to move more smoothly, once we understood the profile of the ideal customer, that is interested in investing in tools that increase income, save money, or reduce risk. Furthermore, since Safetica covers more than one of these reasons, this made the purchase potential much greater, thus facilitating the development of the market and the product in Brazil.

How much time did it take Avant to get the Tier 1 & Tier 2 certifications required for Platinum partner level? 

Tier 1 was fast, as it is mandatory for all technicians at Avant. After understanding and using the solution, we obtained Tier 2 certificate. Tier 1 certificate took us approximately ten days and Tier 2 fifteen days.

What surprised you the most about the cooperation with Safetica?

We have had two big surprises with Safetica. First, when it comes to the concept of DLP, the theory is quite frightening and complex. But when you start working with the tool and understand its concepts, you can see how simple and intuitive it is.

The second surprise was the ease of communication with the entire Safetica team, in addition to being able to deliver feedback and indicate possible improvements. I can safely say that almost no vendor gives this kind of opening. Fast communication, simplicity, and objectivity!

What advice would you give to other partners when it comes to the Safetica partner program?

It is not good to give advice to the competitors, right? I am joking! I think, it is important to use and study the documentation from Safetica, to get familiar with the solution, and have strong teams, both commercial and technical. Furthermore, it is important to have a good relationship with a local distributor, since he is the main connection between a vendor and a reseller.

Avant Services is a Brazilian IT service provider company that offer customers a wide variety of products: from the most common software licensing to complex security solutions. Avant was founded two years ago in Maringá, Brazil. Avant can 

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About Safetica
Safetica is to provide small and mid-sized companies with the same quality data protection that corporations have – affordably, and without any additional IT administration or disruptions in operation.

Supernet: What it is and what it is for?

From now on, let us add “Supernet” into our vocabulary. Learn more!

A set of computers and/or computer equipment connected to each other, and that can exchange data and information, all of those make up a network. The Internet is the network of networks. We could even think that the Internet is the “Supernet”, but we have to tread carefully when using frequently debated terms in computing… For that reason, today, we bring to the fore the term “Supernet” (or Supernetwork), of course always taking an approach from a monitoring perspective.

* Warning: what I write below is my way of looking at things from a practical and sincere point of view. This article only endorses me and, in any case, this entry should be read taking into account the learning approach, it does not intend to be official in any way. That said, let’s start from the basics, which is not the same as starting from scratch.

Terms: Supernet and Supernetting

If we have a network and we buy a new computer, we say that “we add it to a network.” If we have a supernet, then “we add it to a supernet.” We even have a specific verb for it. It is very common to use the term Supernetting; however the following terms are also valid (but less used):

  • Prefix aggregation
  • Route aggregation
  • Route summarization

If we get even more specific, technically we will find differences but for the purposes of this post we will deal with it the same way… Do you think it is daring on my part? Well, there is more!

Request for comments

Although we can go a lot further back in time, the Internet was born in the United States of America, originally called Arpanet, in the late 1960s. A technological predecessor could be the landline from which many of the concepts are born, used when planning the “network of networks”. In fact, the wiring itself, the colors that identify the pairs, are very similar, at a physical or hardware level. This includes the similarities in switched connections (or circuit switching). But, obviously, the Internet and data transport in a digital way ended up completely absorbing telephony.

But the Internet needed more than the physical and conceptual foundation or sustenance of the great American telephone companies. Moreover, October 1969 is marked as the birth of the Internet since the first connection between two computers was made… And it was simply that, since it was not yet a common computer network.

The Internet was born, in my opinion, when pioneer Dr. Steve D. Crocker published the first issue of Request for Comment (RFC) on April 7, 1969. In Issue 6 (RFC 6), Steve Crocker recounts his conversation with Bob Kahn about code conversion for data exchange. RFC 11 publishes the connection implementation in the FAT operating system (yes, that’s what it was called), and I fervently believe that this, published in August 1969, is what enabled the feat performed in October of that same year.

Based on this knowledge base, the RFCs were born: gathering a group of people in their twenties who moved among different universities sharing knowledge and cementing concepts, something that we now do by email… In fact, RFC 733 (1977) outlines this technology and the standard for the email is published in RFC 822 (year 1982).

RFCs grew decade after decade: in 1992, RFC 1338 “Supernetting: an Address Assignment and Aggregation Strategy” was published for information purposes. Yes, at first the supernet was just a mere advertisement, not a protocol, and not even a standard.

Just the following year, in 1993, RFC 1518 “breaks” the paradigm of networks by classes. While class A networks allow millions of IP addresses, the next step – class B networks – only allowed 65 thousand IP addresses: between the two of them the “waste” of IP addresses is very high.

For that reason, the Classless Inter-Domain Routing (better known as CIDR) was born, which is an extension of the original IPv4 addressing system that allows more efficient address allocation. The original class-based method used fixed fields for network identifiers, which was wasteful as I said earlier: most organizations that are assigned those addresses (class A and class B networks) never intended to put so many devices on the Internet.

As additional information, this is the origin of CIDR notation, the suffix that accompanies an IP address (there are 32 bits in an IPv4 address, four octets separated by periods) and that allows describing or narrowing down a range of them. For example, for /20 it allows 4096 IP addresses, for /21 2048 IP addresses and so on, as well as all the way around (all powers of base 2, this is important for a supernet as we will see later). All these numbers can be obtained using the IP address calculator included in Pandora FMS. You may also find many of these calculators online, each with its own style, shapes and colors to present the same data.

Flexible like Pandora FMS

CIDR thus changed the fixed fields to variable length fields and this allowed to assign IP addresses better, and in a more refined way. CIDR IP addresses include a number that indicates how the address is divided between networks and hosts.

For example, in the CIDR address 201.249.0.0/19 the /19 indicates that the first 19 bits are used for the identification of the network and the remaining 13 are used for host identification.

The main purpose of a supernet is to decrease the size of the route table of routers. For example, instead of a router having 8 individual routes, it may have a single route aggregated from these 8 individual routes. This saves memory and processing resources on the routing devices, thus requiring less space to store their route table and less processing power to search the route table. It also provides stability in networks because fluctuations can be isolated, that is, in one part of the network they do not spread to all parts of the network.

Supernetting and Pandora FMS

From Pandora FMS version NG 731 IPAM was included (abbreviation of Internet Protocol Address Management) which allows to manage, discover, diagnose and monitor hundreds of IP addresses.

Within this feature, the supernet, subnets and even virtual private networks (VLAN) are included, all integrated, with the option to export data in CSV files. Unlike creating VLANs, we can only create supernets manually using IPAM. For that, you have to configure, with the necessary parameters, each of the supernets that you want to have, and later add networks already managed with IPAM that may belong to a VLAN. Although it is a manual process from version NG 758, it includes the ability to quickly addy our data from files in CSV format.

To finish off this post, let’s see what the rules that operate a supernet are.

Supernet Rules

Apart from good practices in network configuration, the established rules must always be followed and enforced to avoid chaos reigning.
The rules for creating supernets are as follows:

  • Networks must be contiguous or sequential.
  • The number of networks to add must be a multiple of two or “base two”.
  • And the rule that is somewhat more complicated: compare the value of the first octet not common from the first block of IP addresses (the smallest) of the list of networks to add against the number of networks to add (see previous point). The value of the first non-common octet must be zero or a multiple of the number of networks to be added.

Before finishing, remember Pandora FMS is a flexible monitoring software, capable of monitoring devices, infrastructures, applications, services and business processes.

 

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About PandoraFMS
Pandora FMS is a flexible monitoring system, capable of monitoring devices, infrastructures, applications, services and business processes.
Of course, one of the things that Pandora FMS can control is the hard disks of your computers.

Using Satellite Server for distributed environment monitoring

Satellite server in remote environment monitoring

Today we will talk about one of the most versatile elements that Pandora FMS Enterprise offers us for monitoring distributed environments, the Satellite server. It will allow you to monitor different networks remotely, without the need to have connectivity directly from the monitoring environment with the computers that make it up. We will describe the typical case of companies that have central headquarters and remote offices, the different things we may find and how the satellite server can help us deploy efficient monitoring in an economic, fast and simple way.

Standard monitoring types

Before getting into the description of the case, let’s remember how monitoring works overall with Pandora FMS. There are two basic types of monitoring, local monitoring and remote monitoring.

The first, which we call local, consists of installing a small software on your devices (servers, mobiles, workstations, etc.) which we call monitoring agent. Agents are in charge of collecting the metrics locally on the machine, packaging them and sending them to the server. In this type of monitoring, communication goes from the agent (monitored device) to the server in a defined time interval, so the server does not have to interrogate the device, it just has an open port through which information is received, and any device that can reach that port will be able to send its data, so communication is “simple”, you just need to make sure that your monitoring server is exposed to all of your agents.

The second form of monitoring is what we call remote monitoring. Remote monitoring means that the monitoring server interrogates the agent to monitor through some protocol (icmp, tcp, snmp, http, wmi, etc). This could go from a simple ping to connecting to the api of a complex tool, such as vsphere, to retrieve information from all virtual machines, esx and datastores running in this environment and their corresponding metrics.

This type of monitoring opens the doors to being able to retrieve large amounts of data requiring little configuration and without the need to install any extra software on the devices, which is wonderful, but it also entails other inconveniences, such as having to guarantee connectivity from the monitoring server to each of the elements to be monitored, taking into account the security criteria to open these communications.

When you have a single headquarters of any size, this is not usually a problem, since you might usually have your devices and applications concentrated in the same place and communications management between environments is usually easier, this situation becomes complicated when you have more than one headquarters or small remote offices.

Description of a distributed environment

Let’s picture a distributed architecture with a headquarters where you have most of your applications and IT equipment, but you also have smaller sites that also have their equipment and applications. We have examples of this infrastructure, highly distributed, in environments like restaurant franchises, supermarkets, banks, retail stores, pharmacies, insurance companies, etc. Where they usually have powerful, well-managed data centers at headquarters, but remote sites lack the space or staff to maintain servers. Most of the time, there are not even permanent technical support staff for the equipment in these locations, so implementing monitoring can be challenging.

If some technology is implemented such as a site-to-site vpn, a sd-wan or dedicated communication between your sites, there is hardly any problem, you may have your monitoring environment at your headquarters and from there “attack” your remote devices. Well, the problem is that these solutions are expensive and require implementation and management, and if they are not already implemented, their implementation can become very complicated (and expensive). It is in these cases where the satellite server becomes essential, since it combines the versatility of remote monitoring with the communication behavior of local monitoring.

Using the Satellite Server

The Satellite Server consists of software that will be in charge of doing the remote checks on your network. Let’s say that in our restaurant, for example, it will do network scans, monitor each of the restaurant’s devices through different protocols, store these data and then pack them and send them to the main Pandora FMS server as if it were a local agent, so the headquarters/remote headquarters communication is simplified. You just have to make sure that a single device, the Satellite Server, can communicate with Pandora FMS server, in that sense from the remote headquarters to the main headquarters to send the data packets. Remote checks will always be done from within the local network without the need to expose any of the services, devices or applications of your remote headquarters.

Even if you want to make use of hybrid monitoring (local and remote monitoring) in your remote headquarters, you may install software agents on your devices and point them to our satellite so that it becomes the single delivery point between your remote headquarters and your headquarters.

In addition, the Satellite Server has remote configuration, so once deployed, it can be managed and configured from your main monitoring environment, being able to add new metrics, alert systems, policies and more configurations without having to access your remote headquarters, all from your Pandora FMS web console at your headquarters.

Regarding its deployment, the Satellite Server is a very light software especially compared to a full Pandora FMS installation, so the hardware requirements for monitoring remote sites are really low, it can even be deployed in a Raspberry Pi, which is a very cheap and compact device, or failing that, you may use any of the resources that are already deployed at the headquarters, such as a data server, to deploy your Satellite.

As you can see, monitoring remote sites using the satellite server simplifies a huge deal the configuration necessary for monitoring, helping you save money and implementation time that without a tool like this would be a lot higher and more complex.

Today we discussed only one of the typical cases, which is one of the most common ones, to describe the performance and the usefulness of a satellite server, but it is not only valid for remote locations, it is useful in many other ways, such as load balancing, making checks at the same point from different locations (very useful in monitoring web pages) or even for monitoring complex environments such as Kubernetes or Openshift, where many of the services are not exposed to the outside, such as databases or backend services, and that you could monitor if you deployed a pod with the satellite within the network and directly attacking these services, for example.

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About PandoraFMS
Pandora FMS is a flexible monitoring system, capable of monitoring devices, infrastructures, applications, services and business processes.
Of course, one of the things that Pandora FMS can control is the hard disks of your computers.

Main Cybersecurity Challenges for Brazilian Companies

Information security is very important to companies, so investing in cybersecurity must always be considered a priority. However, Brazilian companies still face several challenges in this sector. Do you know what the main cybersecurity challenges are for Brazilian companies?

With this article, you will understand the aspects that Brazilian companies face regarding cybersecurity, especially nowadays with the increase in remote work.

What is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is a tactic to protect against threats and attacks on computer networks, servers, and company databases and information.

With the increasingly frequent use of digital media within organizations, regardless of their size, information has great weight and value within the market, so it can be seen as a currency of exchange and negotiation.

From this perspective, performing this protection is essential and can guarantee a company’s position in the market and prevent the occurrence of serious security incidents, such as data leaks and theft, which can be devastating for the business.

That is why companies invest in cybersecurity so that they have systems to protect their entire digital structure, servers, equipment, and accesses.

Thus, the intention is to allow access only to authorized people, prevent attacks and data modification, and other actions that can be performed by criminals who work in this environment.

This need is growing because just as technology undergoes updates that help companies improve their security systems, the contrary also happens.

That said, in Brazil, there are still several challenges to be faced in relation to this issue. In fact, in 2019, the country was the fourth most attacked by criminals who work in data theft – mainly financial data – according to research by Kaspersky.

As a consequence, there is a need to overcome obstacles to achieve a better level of cybersecurity. Check some of these main obstacles below.

Lack of Full-time Monitoring

One of the main challenges observed when it comes to cybersecurity failures is that many Brazilian companies are exposed to attacks depending on the time and day.

The ideal, in turn, is for companies to have teams prepared to detect when cyberattacks occur, including at night, on weekends, and holidays.

–

Are you interested in getting more details about this matter of great importance? Visit our website and see many other articles on the subject!

Lack of Employee Training

Another challenge to be faced is the lack of preparation of company employees. There is a need for constant training and updates for employees, as often the infrastructure is susceptible or is under attack and employees do not have the necessary knowledge to identify it.

With this, something subtle that could be identified in the first moments of data invasion ends up going unnoticed, which allows the attacks to continue and the failures in the system and the team to be leveraged to damage the company.

Home Office Cybersecurity

Home office work is also among the challenges that Brazilian companies face regarding cybersecurity. This working model is increasingly used by companies from all industries and the trend may be that it will continue to grow, as it can reduce costs and be very advantageous in several aspects. However, in terms of information security, employees working in home office mode make the company’s systems and data more vulnerable and susceptible to attacks.

This is because employees often use personal computers without proper protection and which can bring considerable risks to the company’s system.

So, there is a need for investment and overcoming this obstacle so that companies are prepared and have a high level of cybersecurity, even when the work is performed outside the company’s premises.

When all the obstacles are brought together, along with many others not covered in this article, the result is a high-risk exposure to companies, which can have serious consequences.

That’s because all types of transactions are currently done digitally, with data storage for customers, service providers, employees, company data, and even financial data.

Thus, when this information is vulnerable within a company, without constant supervision and without improving existing protection systems, the chances of attacks are great.

Consequently, cybersecurity in Brazilian companies must undergo a revolution in many terms. Moreover, systems that are already in use should always be updated as threats emerge daily.

Only then, with constant vigilance and using all available resources to create strong and efficient strategies, information can be protected and better handled in companies.

Until that happens, it is important to increase vigilance and perform constant checks. That is also true because, depending on the level and size of the company, the target of attacks can be even greater, with equally greater consequences.

And not only that, but companies have a legal obligation to efficiently protect customer data and information. Leaks can be catastrophic and create a network of uncertainties for customers, making the development and maintenance of the company suffer.

In conclusion, cybersecurity is a sector that still has many significant gaps in Brazilian companies which must be closed so that the level of information security reaches an efficient and more satisfactory level, offering fewer risks to everyone, both to the company and those who trust it with their data.

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About Segura®
Segura® strive to ensure the sovereignty of companies over actions and privileged information. To this end, we work against data theft through traceability of administrator actions on networks, servers, databases and a multitude of devices. In addition, we pursue compliance with auditing requirements and the most demanding standards, including PCI DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, ISO 27001 and HIPAA.