Cybersecurity and Third-Party Risk. Gregory C. Rasner

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A superset of cybersecurity, third‐party risk, and executive leadership will benefit the most from reading this book. On the cybersecurity side, analysts to senior leadership will be able to take their information security knowledge and experience to perform the hands‐on work and management of third‐party risk, while third‐party risk professionals will better understand and appreciate the need to include a more robust cybersecurity risk domain. Executive and senior leadership in business who are not focused on cybersecurity or third‐party risk will gain an understanding of the risk, practice, and frameworks, and how to lower their risk for a cybersecurity event at their vendors.

      Looking Ahead in This Book

      This book is divided into two sections. Section 1, titled “The Basics,” lays the case for the need of a robust and active Cybersecurity Third‐Party Risk Management program as well as the necessary and basic due diligence activities and processes needed. These are not basic as in “simple,” but in terms that they are the foundation necessary to building a mature program, which is covered in Section 2, titled “Next Steps.” This section details what comes next, after you have built the basic foundation. This “Next Steps” section describes cyber legal language, cloud security, software security, connectivity security, offshore vendors, and how to build predictive reporting that focuses on the highest risk vendors.

      Chapter 1 opens with a detailed description of risk by using examples of the SolarWinds and other supply‐chain attacks, which happened in late 2020, as prime examples of how the threat actors have evolved both in their identity and tactics. Examples are also provided in a long list of companies who have lost their data due to a vendor that did not take due care with their data. Chapter 2 provides some basics on cybersecurity. This book does not require the reader to be a cybersecurity or third‐party risk expert, but it does require that a few concepts are defined and frameworks are covered for both topics to ensure all readers are at a set level. Chapter 3 delves into how the COVID‐19 pandemic affected the security landscape and how quickly the attackers adapted to new opportunities. What happens when the pandemic is over and how it will change behaviors and business in ways that will become the new normal will mean a continued increase in cybercriminal activity.

Chapter 4 is an in‐depth look at Third‐Party Risk Management (TPRM) and is included to provide a set level for the readers as well as to tie the cybersecurity and TPRM concepts together, as both domains are aimed at identifying and managing risk. Chapters 5 through 9 cover the vendor lifecycle of intake, ongoing security, and offboarding due diligence activities Chapter 5 reviews the activities and requirements for vetting and performing security assessments of new vendors or services from existing suppliers. Chapter 6 describes ongoing cybersecurity due diligence activities such as remote assessments. Chapter 7 is then devoted to the important complex topic of on‐site assessments, which are essential due diligence processes for the physical validation of security controls at a vendor site and the gold standard for assurance.

      Chapter 8 covers the Continuous Monitoring (CM) program and how it is a crucial security control for vendors for the times in between the point‐in‐time assessments. Building a robust CM program means taking a set of tools and internal data to engage vendors on potential real threats that they may be unaware of and reducing risk collaboratively. Chapter 9, the last chapter on the vendor lifecycle, discusses offboarding. Many firms overlook this part of the lifecycle, so this chapter covers the critical steps and due diligence that must be done to ensure there's no risk to the data or connectivity from a vendor.

Section 2 begins with Chapter 10, which discusses the large topic of the cloud. The shared responsibility model is discussed and how it affects the security controls that your vendor is responsible for and what they have outsourced to the Cloud Service Provider (CSP). Cybersecurity, offshore vendors, cloud and privacy legal language and process is covered in Chapter 11; and then Chapter 12 details in depth the possible ways to test and perform due diligence on third‐party software. Connectivity to a vendor is a unique risk that opens a whole organization's network and data to an attacker traversing from the vendor or exploiting the hardware they use to connect, and is discussed in Chapter 13. Chapter 14 contains details on how to manage offshore vendor risk, while Chapter 15 wraps up with ways to take all the data collected with the due diligence and other cybersecurity activities to become more predictive for risks and produce reports.

Special Features

      The notes found sprinkled throughout this book are designed to provide an example or expansion on topics that bring the topic (either in the chapter or the book as a whole) into a real‐world illustration or in‐depth analysis. Tips are added in the book to deliver information to the reader on how to improve a process or activity (or a common pitfall to avoid), while definitions help the reader to understand the concepts involved.

Chapter 1 What Is the Risk?

On December 10, 2020, ESET researchers announce they have found that a chat software called Able Desktop (Able)—part of a widely used business management suite in Mongolia including 430 Mongolian government agencies—was exploited to deliver the HyperBro backdoor, the Korplug RAT (remote access trojan), and another RAT named Tmanger. They also found and identified a connection with the ShadowPad backdoor, used by at least five threat actors in the exploit. Two installers were infected with the trojan and the compromised Able update system was installed with the malicious software. Evidence shows that the Able system had been compromised since June 2020, while the malware‐infected installers were delivered as far back as May 2018.

      The post explains that HyperbBro is commonly attributed to the cybercriminal group named “LuckyMouse,” a Chinese‐speaking threat actor known for highly targeted cyberattacks. Primarily active in South East and Central Asia, many of their attacks have a political aim. Tmanger is attributed to TA428, also a Chinese Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group. Because these two applications are used normally by different APTs and are now together in one attack, the ESET team theorizes that LuckyMouse and TA428 are sharing data and weapons; they are also likely the subgroup of a larger APT. Given the region and threat actors, it is considered to be a political attack that had been planned as early as May 2018, yet not carried out in earnest until two years later.

      Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) is the term given to state actors (i.e., government run or authorized hackers) or large cybercriminal syndicates that have a lot of time and patience to perform very stealthy, large‐scale attacks aimed at political or economic goals.

The SolarWinds Supply‐Chain Attack

On December 13, 2020, FireEye, a global leader in СКАЧАТЬ