Every year the RSA conference brings together members of the cybersecurity community for a week of presentations, discussions, tech demos and socials. Concurrent with the event there is always a flurry of press releases. Many are designed to highlight a company’s product or service. Many, like the announcement of the new Microsoft led coalition of tech firms, might be well intentioned but highlight something that will have zero impact. But there are always a few releases that are worth focusing on.
Which leads us to the Global Cyber Alliance. The Global Cyber Alliance is an international, cross-sector effort designed to confront, address, and prevent malicious cyber activity. It is led by an icon of the cybersecurity community, Phil Reitinger, and Phil is a guy known for focusing on action that can be measured (the motto of the alliance is “Do something. Measure it”.
While any organization under Phil will make a difference, this one is unique in that it spans across borders, sectors, and industries. Like the Internet, it is not bound by geography.
The press release that caught my attention pasted below. This is clear evidence that the Global Cyber Alliance is making a difference.
Review it and then please realize now it is your turn for action. Use the tools and information provided by the Alliance to improve your own email security and better defend your part of cyberspace, and also use their tools to help your business partners and supply chain better defend their part of cyberspace.
GLOBAL CYBER ALLIANCE LAUNCHES FREE TOOLS TO SECURE WEBSITES AND EVALUATE RISK FROM PARTNER EMAIL
From: GlobalCyberAlliance.com
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, April 17, 2018 – The Global Cyber Alliance today released two new free, open-source tools to enable organizations to reduce cybersecurity risks associated with website and email born cyberattacks.
GCA McScrapy enables organizations to lock down their website to remove potential security issues from third-party services and other unnecessary functionality. In addition, a new email security tool – the GCA DMARC Risk Scanner – allows organizations to determine if the organizations on which they depend, such as their trading partners and supply chain, are protecting their email domains from being spoofed or phished.
“Reducing risk is the best cyber defense,” said Philip Reitinger, president and CEO of the Global Cyber Alliance. “Among the most popular open doors that cyber criminals exploit are phishing attacks and compromise of an organization’s website. The tools we released today are designed to help stop these attacks and prevent loss to businesses.”
GCA McScrapy: Locking Down Websites
While GCA McScrapy can be used on websites developed with any content management system, nearly 60 percent of websites are designed using the WordPress platform. While WordPress is a popular platform, by its nature, its functions raise the risk of potential compromise. WordPress dynamically composes web pages using PHP and JavaScript and thus carries with it a risk for bugs and security vulnerabilities that serve as an attack vector. According to a WP WhiteSecurity October 2017 report on WordPress vulnerabilities, there are 2407 known vulnerabilities, more than half those vulnerabilities (54%) are from WordPress plugins and 31.5% are core WordPress vulnerabilities. The two most prevalent vulnerabilities are cross-site scripting and SQL injection.
GCA McScrapy converts a website into a set of static files, removing unnecessary functionality. Using a static website nullifies many concerns of cross-site scripting and SQL injection since there is no communication with the website’s content management system for dynamic content. The tool evaluates every part of a website and renders it into simple form, keeping as much functionality as possible, while removing potential security issues such as third-party services. Not all functionality can be maintained, however, and updating websites takes extra steps, making GCA McScrapy best for websites for which security is very important. GCA McScrapy is also highly configurable and can be adjusted to reduce scan times and scrape mobile sites. GCA McScrapy is free for anyone to use. Learn more about GCA McScrapy at github.com/GlobalCyberAlliance/.
GCA DMARC Risk Scanner: Holding Partners Accountable
The Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) security protocol enables organizations to protect their email domains from being used by spammers and phishers to trick employees, customers and trading partners.
The GCA DMARC Risk Scanner can be used to scan hundreds of domains at one time to determine the level of DMARC and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) protections used by an organization’s partners, including the third parties with whom it works, its supply chain, and its trading partners. This enables an organization to better understand, and act upon, the risk imposed on it by its partners who have not employed DMARC.
Without DMARC implemented, scammers and criminals can easily “spoof” an email domain to steal money, trade secrets or even jeopardize national security. DMARC weeds out fake emails (known as direct domain spoofing) deployed by spammers and phishers targeting the inboxes of workers in all sectors of society. According to the 2017 Symantec ISTR report, 1 in 131 emails contained malware, the highest rate in 5 years.
Like all GCA tools, the GCA DMARC Risk Scanner is freely available at github.com/GlobalCyberAlliance/. Learn more about DMARC at dmarc.globalcyberalliance.org.
About the Global Cyber Alliance
The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) is an international, cross-sector effort dedicated to eradicating cyber risk and improving our connected world. We achieve our mission by uniting global communities, implementing concrete solutions, and measuring the effect. GCA, a 501(c)3, was founded in September 2015 by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the City of London Police and the Center for Internet Security. Learn more at www.globalcyberalliance.org.
