Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Critical Java Zero-Day Vulnerability

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

This week there is a new critical alert that requires the mission-critical community’s immediate attention.

Advisory Overview

A critical remote code vulnerability has emerged in Log4j, a Java logging package that is used in numerous software products and platforms from organizations like Apache, Apple, Twitter, Tesla, and Steam. This vulnerability impacts almost every Java application that writes logs using this library. Apache has released a patch for this vulnerability, which is being tracked as CVE-2021-44228. MCP recommends applying this patch immediately to protect your organization.

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Fortinet and Microsoft Exchange Vulnerability Exploits

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: BlackMatter Ransomware

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

A Primer on the Most Prevalent Cyberattack Vectors

Cyberattacks pose to organizations in the public safety and justice sectors. This post offers a primer on the most prevalent attack vectors.

Ransomware — This is a specific type of malware that enables cyberattackers to encrypt the targeted organization’s files. Only when the organization agrees to pay a ransom—hence the name—does the cyberattacker decrypt the files. In the current environment, this is one of the most prevalent cyber attacks and is increasing in frequency.

Eleven Advanced Cybersecurity Tactics for Courts

Previous blogs presented an overview of the grave threat cyberattacks present to the justice community and essential strategies and tactics for preventing them. This blog offers intermediate and advanced strategies and tactics suggested by the Joint Technology Committee in its resource bulletin, “Cybersecurity Basics for Courts.” The committee is a joint effort of the Conference of State Court Administrators, the National Association for Court Management, and the National Center for State Courts.

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: BulletProofLink Makes Cyberattacks Easier

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Disguised Windows Files and Documentation

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

Today there is a new critical alert that requires the mission-critical community’s immediate attention.

Advisory Overview

Security researchers have discovered recent attempts by cyberattackers to infect machines with malicious Microsoft Word documents containing VBA macros and JavaScript — their goal is to plant a backdoor and create persistence. These documents are disguised as documentation or information related to the new Windows 11 Alpha release to entice users into interacting. The key recommendation to remediate the threat is to block the indicators of compromise (IOCs) identified in this advisory.

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Office 365 Zero-Day Attacks

Microsoft released a mitigation for a vulnerability that exists in the Windows 10 operating system that can be exploited against Office 365 and Office 2019. Identified as CVE-2021-40444, this vulnerability could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on a device if exploited. Because Microsoft Office is used and trusted by millions worldwide, attackers potentially could launch very-large-scale attacks; accordingly, this vulnerability has a severity rating of 8.8 out of 10. Recommendations from Mission Critical Partners to prevent devices from becoming susceptible to this vulnerability are below.

Essential Tactics for Enhancing Cybersecurity in Today’s Justice Organizations

In my previous blog on cybersecurity, I provided a high-level perspective on the cybersecurity environment for justice organizations today. I noted that the environment is worrisome — it is a virtual certainty that cyberattackers, at this very moment, are looking for a way to infiltrate your organization’s networks and systems.

But I promised a progression (crawl, walk, run) that you can employ immediately to quickly begin thwarting cyberattackers and protecting your networks and systems, as well as the critical data and applications that run on them. This strategy is based on industry best practices and thought leadership to which MCP has actively contributed.^[1]

Implementing a Cybersecurity Training Program is the First Line of Defense

Cybersecurity has become a huge problem for any organization that is operating networks and/or systems, but especially so for those in the government sector, particularly public-safety and justice agencies.

Are Cloud-Based Solutions Right for Your Agency?

A lot of people in the public safety/justice/public sector sectors are talking about cloud-based solutions these days. It is easy to understand why there is so much chatter because solutions that live in the cloud offer some impressive benefits. Here are just a few:

• Cloud-based solutions typically offer best-of-breed technologies and services
• Cloud-based solutions remove the maintenance and upgrade burden from the end user from a technology perspective
• Cloud-based solutions often make it easier to share resources regionally or even broader compared with siloed, on-premises solutions
• Cloud-based solutions typically offer enhanced resiliency and redundancy compared with on-premises solutions
• Cloud-based solutions often make it easier for agencies to transfer operations to another location in “bug out” scenarios
• Cloud-based solutions are easier and faster to scale —both up and down, based on the agency’s needs at any given juncture — compared with on-premises solutions
• Cloud-based solutions typically are more secure, because providers often have greater information technology and cybersecurity resources and assets to draw upon

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: LockBit Ransomware

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.