R. Kinney Williams - Yennik, Inc.
R. Kinney Williams
Yennik, Inc.

Internet Banking News
Brought to you by Yennik, Inc. the acknowledged leader in Internet auditing for financial institutions.

Remote offsite and Onsite FFIEC IT Audits

March 13, 2022

Newsletter Content FFIEC IT Security FFIEC & ADA Web Site Audits
Web Site Compliance NIST Handbook Penetration Testing
Does Your Financial Institution need an affordable cybersecurity Internet security audit?  Yennik, Inc. has clients in 42 states that rely on our cybersecurity audits to ensure proper Internet security settings and to meet the independent diagnostic test requirements of FDIC, OCC, FRB, and NCUA, which provides compliance with Gramm-Leach Bliley Act 501(b) as well as the penetration test complies with the FFIEC Cybersecurity Assessment Tool regarding resilience testing The cybersecurity penetration audit and Internet security testing is an affordable-sophisticated process than goes far beyond the simple scanning of ports.  The audit focuses on a hacker's perspective, which will help you identify real-world cybersecurity weaknesses.  For more information, give R. Kinney Williams a call today at Office/Cell 806-535-8300 or visit http://www.internetbankingaudits.com/.
Remote bank regulatory FFIEC IT audits - I am performing virtual/remote bank regality FFIEC IT audits for banks and credit unions.  I am a former bank examiner with years of IT auditing experience.  Please contact R. Kinney Williams at examiner@yennik.com from your bank's email and I will send you information and fees.  All correspondence is confidential.


MISCELLANEOUS CYBERSECURITY NEWS:
Medical device disclosures on the rise, but providers struggle to patch known flaws - However, patch management struggles -may be impeding that progress. As seen with new Palo Alto research on infusion pump vulnerabilities, the majority of these devices are operating with known flaws. https://www.scmagazine.com/analysis/patch-management/medical-device-disclosures-on-the-rise-but-providers-struggle-to-patch-known-flaws

Four ways to get the most out of a threat detection program - Most organizations try to stay ahead of threats and enhance their security posture with limited resources. https://www.scmagazine.com/perspective/threat-hunting/four-ways-to-get-the-most-out-of-a-threat-detection-program%EF%BF%BC

New HSCC insights target cybersecurity contract language for medical tech - New insights from the Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC) Cybersecurity Working Group targets the oft-uneven relationship between medical device manufacturers and delivery organizations that lead to maturity and security challenges in the healthcare sector. https://www.scmagazine.com/analysis/device-security/new-hscc-insights-targets-cybersecurity-contract-language-for-medical-tech

NSA report: This is how you should be securing your network - The National Security Agency (NSA) has released a new report that gives all organizations the most current advice on how to protect their IT network infrastructures from cyberattacks. https://www.zdnet.com/article/nsa-report-this-is-how-you-should-be-securing-your-network/

FBI pushes for ‘real time’ cyber incident reporting mandates, liability protections - FBI Director Christopher Wray continued to argue that his bureau should receive mandatory reports about hacks and other significant cyber incidents from critical infrastructure “in real time” and called for strong liability protections for businesses. https://www.scmagazine.com/analysis/critical-infrastructure/fbi-pushes-for-real-time-cyber-incident-reporting-mandates-liability-protections

Fraudsters target e-commerce as online transactions become the ‘new normal’ - It’s no secret that digital fraud attempts targeting online payment and financial accounts have jumped in the past two years, exacerbated by pandemic woes and a growth in e-commerce and digital financial services usage. https://www.scmagazine.com/analysis/identity-and-access/fraudsters-target-e-commerce-as-online-transactions-become-the-new-normal

CYBERSECURITY ATTACKS, INTRUSIONS, DATA THEFT & LOSS:

BD discloses hard-coded flaws impacting some Pyxis, Viper medical devices - The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an alert for the healthcare and public health sectors on vulnerabilities found in certain BD Pyxis and Viper LT products that could enable the access or modification of sensitive information. https://www.scmagazine.com/analysis/device-security/bd-discloses-hard-coded-flaws-impacting-some-pyxis-viper-medical-devices

Samsung confirms Galaxy device source code leaked after breach - Samsung confirmed a data breach led to the leak of source code for its Galaxy devices. https://www.scmagazine.com/news/breach/samsung-confirms-galaxy-device-source-code-leaked-after-breach

NVIDIA’s Stolen Code-Signing Certs Used to Sign Malware - NVIDIA certificates are being used to sign malware, enabling malicious programs to pose as legitimate and slide past security safeguards on Windows machines. https://threatpost.com/nvidias-stolen-code-signing-certs-sign-malware/178784/

PressReader service partially returns after cyberattack impacts 7,000+ publications - PressReader, a digital platform for hundreds of print newspapers and magazines, said its systems are slowly returning to normal after a cyberattack caused outages since last Thursday. https://www.zdnet.com/article/pressreader-service-partially-returns-after-cyberattack-causes-outage/

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WEB SITE COMPLIANCE -
We continue covering some of the issues discussed in the "Risk Management Principles for Electronic Banking" published by the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision.
  
  
Sound Capacity, Business Continuity and Contingency Planning Practices for E-Banking
  
  1. All e-banking services and applications, including those provided by third-party service providers, should be identified and assessed for criticality.
  
  2. A risk assessment for each critical e-banking service and application, including the potential implications of any business disruption on the bank's credit, market, liquidity, legal, operational and reputation risk should be conducted.
  
  3. Performance criteria for each critical e-banking service and application should be established, and service levels should be monitored against such criteria.  Appropriate measures should be taken to ensure that e-banking systems can handle high and low transaction volume and that systems performance and capacity is consistent with the bank's expectations for future growth in e-banking.
  
  4. Consideration should be given to developing processing alternatives for managing demand when e-banking systems appear to be reaching defined capacity checkpoints.
  
  5. E-banking business continuity plans should be formulated to address any reliance on third-party service providers and any other external dependencies required achieving recovery.
  
  6. E-banking contingency plans should set out a process for restoring or replacing e-banking processing capabilities, reconstructing supporting transaction information, and include measures to be taken to resume availability of critical e-banking systems and applications in the event of a business disruption.


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FFIEC IT SECURITY - We continue our series on the FFIEC interagency Information Security Booklet.  
  
  SECURITY CONTROLS - IMPLEMENTATION - OPERATING SYSTEM ACCESS (Part 2 of 2)

  
  Additional operating system access controls include the following actions:
  
  ! Ensure system administrators and security professionals have adequate expertise to securely configure and manage the operating system.
  ! Ensure effective authentication methods are used to restrict system access to both users and applications.
  ! Activate and utilize operating system security and logging capabilities and supplement with additional security software where supported by the risk assessment process.
  ! Restrict operating system access to specific terminals in physically secure and monitored locations.
  ! Lock or remove external drives from system consoles or terminals residing outside physically secure locations.
  ! Restrict and log access to system utilities, especially those with data altering capabilities.
  ! Restrict access to operating system parameters.
  ! Prohibit remote access to sensitive operating system functions, where feasible, and at a minimum require strong authentication and encrypted sessions before allowing remote support.
  ! Limit the number of employees with access to sensitive operating systems and grant only the minimum level of access required to perform routine responsibilities.
  ! Segregate operating system access, where possible, to limit full or root - level access to the system.
  ! Monitor operating system access by user, terminal, date, and time of access.
  ! Update operating systems with security patches and using appropriate change control mechanisms.


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NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY - We continue the series on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Handbook.
 
 Chapter 18 - AUDIT TRAILS
 
 18.2 Audit Trails and Logs
 
 
18.2.1 Keystroke Monitoring
 

 Keystroke monitoring is the process used to view or record both the keystrokes entered by a computer user and the computer's response during an interactive session. Keystroke monitoring is usually considered a special case of audit trails. Examples of keystroke monitoring would include viewing characters as they are typed by users, reading users' electronic mail, and viewing other recorded information typed by users.
 
 Some forms of routine system maintenance may record user keystrokes. This could constitute keystroke monitoring if the keystrokes are preserved along with the user identification so that an administrator could determine the keystrokes entered by specific users. Keystroke monitoring is conducted in an effort to protect systems and data from intruders who access the systems without authority or in excess of their assigned authority. Monitoring keystrokes typed by intruders can help administrators assess and repair damage caused by intruders.
 
 18.2.2 Audit Events
 
 System audit records are generally used to monitor and fine-tune system performance. Application audit trails may be used to discern flaws in applications, or violations of security policy committed within an application. User audits records are generally used to hold individuals accountable for their actions. An analysis of user audit records may expose a variety of security violations, which might range from simple browsing to attempts to plant Trojan horses or gain unauthorized privileges.
 
 The system itself enforces certain aspects of policy (particularly system-specific policy) such as access to files and access to the system itself. Monitoring the alteration of systems configuration files that implement the policy is important. If special accesses (e.g., security administrator access) have to be used to alter configuration files, the system should generate audit records whenever these accesses are used.
 
 Sometimes a finer level of detail than system audit trails is required. Application audit trails can provide this greater level of recorded detail. If an application is critical, it can be desirable to record not only who invoked the application, but certain details specific to each use. For example, consider an e-mail application. It may be desirable to record who sent mail, as well as to whom they sent mail and the length of messages. Another example would be that of a database application. It may be useful to record who accessed what database as well as the individual rows or columns of a table that were read (or changed or deleted), instead of just recording the execution of the database program.
 
 A user audit trail monitors and logs user activity in a system or application by recording events initiated by the user (e.g., access of a file, record or field, use of a modem).
 
 Flexibility is a critical feature of audit trails. Ideally (from a security point of view), a system administrator would have the ability to monitor all system and user activity, but could choose to log only certain functions at the system level, and within certain applications. The decision of how much to log and how much to review should be a function of application/data sensitivity and should be decided by each functional manager/application owner with guidance from the system administrator and the computer security manager/officer, weighing the costs and benefits of the logging.


PLEASE NOTE:
 
Some of the above links may have expired, especially those from news organizations.  We may have a copy of the article, so please e-mail us at examiner@yennik.com if we can be of assistance.