Cyber security company SonicWall has urged customers to patch its enterprise secure VPN hardware to thwart an “imminent ransomware campaign using stolen credentials.”
This week, the company issued a notice saying customers who do not take appropriate actions to mitigate these vulnerabilities on their SRA and SMA 100 series products could be at risk of an attack.
The products in question are those running unpatched and end-of-life (EOL) 8.x firmware. SonicWall said researchers at security firm Mandiant informed SonicWall that threat actors were actively targeting models that are no longer supported.
“SonicWall PSIRT strongly suggests that organizations still using 8.x firmware review the information below and take immediate action,” said the company.
Since at least June, the attacks have been happening when cyber security firm Crowdstrike had warned that attacks against devices were ongoing.
“CrowdStrike Services incident response teams identified eCrime actors leveraging an older SonicWall VPN vulnerability, CVE-2019-7481, that affects Secure Remote Access (SRA) 4600 devices; the ability to leverage the vulnerability to affect SRA devices was previously undisclosed by SonicWall,” it said.
“CrowdStrike Intelligence researchers confirmed that CVE-2019-7481 affects SRA devices running the latest versions of 8.x and 9.x firmware, and that the latest versions of Secure Mobile Access (SMA) firmware do not mitigate the CVE for SRA devices.”
SonicWall told customers with end-of-life SMA and SRA devices running firmware 8.x to either update their firmware or disconnect their appliances.
“If your organization is using a legacy SRA appliance that is past end-of-life status and cannot update to 9.x firmware, continued use may result in ransomware exploitation,” the company warned.
Andy Norton, European cyber risk officer at Armis, told ITPro that the immediate requirement for SonicWall customers is to profile their asset estate for SMA and SRA 100 devices and take appropriate isolation action until the patch can be applied or the devices can be retired from service.
“The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency, CISA, under the new "StopRansomware" campaign has just announced guidance to stop two bad practices that aid the spread of ransomware,” he said.
RELATED RESOURCE
How to reduce the risk of phishing and ransomware
Top security concerns and tips for mitigation
“The first of which highlights that the use of unsupported (or end-of-life) software in service of Critical Infrastructure and National Critical Functions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. This dangerous practice is especially egregious in internet-accessible technologies. This SonicWall announcement ticks the CISA box for 75% of the models that are under attack."
-
How to implement a four-day week in techIn-depth More companies are switching to a four-day week as they look to balance employee well-being with productivity
-
Intelligence sharing: The boost for businessesIn-depth Intelligence sharing with peers is essential if critical sectors are to be protected
-
Hackers breached a 158 year old company by guessing an employee password – experts say it’s a ‘pertinent reminder’ of the devastating impact of cyber crimeNews A Panorama documentary exposed hackers' techniques and talked to the teams trying to tackle them
-
Okta and Palo Alto Networks are teaming up to ‘fight AI with AI’News The expanded partnership aims to help shore up identity security as attackers increasingly target user credentials
-
The ransomware boom shows no signs of letting up – and these groups are causing the most chaosNews Thousands of ransomware cases have already been posted on the dark web this year
-
Everything we know about the Ingram Micro cyber attack so farNews A cyber attack on Ingram Micro severely disrupted operations and has been claimed by the SafePay ransomware group.
-
A prolific ransomware group says it’s shutting down and giving out free decryption keys to victims – but cyber experts warn it's not exactly a 'gesture of goodwill'
News The Hunters International ransomware group is rebranding and switching tactics
-
Swiss government data published following supply chain attack – here’s what we know about the culpritsNews Radix, a non-profit organization in the health promotion sector, supplies a number of federal offices, whose data has apparently been accessed.
-
Ransomware victims are getting better at haggling with hackersNews While nearly half of companies paid a ransom to get their data back last year, victims are taking an increasingly hard line with hackers to strike fair deals.
-
LockBit data dump reveals a treasure trove of intel on the notorious hacker groupNews An analysis of May's SQL database dump shows how much LockBit was really making
