The primary culprit behind the outage was a faulty update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. This update malfunctioned, impacting functionality on numerous Windows devices. Adding to the chaos, Microsoft encountered a separate outage affecting its popular Microsoft 365 suite of applications and services due to an internal configuration change.

The list of services impacted by the outage includes Microsoft Defender, Intune, Teams, PowerBI, Fabric, OneNote, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online, Windows 365, Viva Engage, Microsoft Purview, and the Microsoft 365 admin center, according to specialists.

Domino Effect: Widespread Disruptions

The combined effect of these outages was a domino effect, causing significant disruptions worldwide. Businesses heavily reliant on Microsoft products, such as airlines, banks, media outlets, and even healthcare systems, were brought to a standstill.

Imagine the scene: Passengers stranded at airports due to grounded flights as airlines couldn’t access critical flight management systems. Banks faced similar issues, with online transactions and ATM withdrawals becoming unavailable. Television stations went dark, leaving viewers with a frustrating wave of static. Hospitals, thankfully, likely had backup systems in place, but the disruption could have caused delays and hindered communication.

Thankfully, the situation wasn’t without a swift response. CrowdStrike, upon identifying the faulty update, quickly rolled back the change, preventing further damage. Microsoft also addressed its internal configuration issue, gradually restoring functionality to its services.

A Stark Reminder: Dependence on Technology

The July 19th outage is a stark reminder of just how dependent we have become on technology. From managing flight schedules to processing financial transactions, our daily lives are intricately woven with these digital tools. The outage highlighted the potential vulnerabilities associated with this reliance.

The event underscores the importance of robust backup systems and redundancy measures within critical infrastructure. Additionally, it emphasizes the need for closer collaboration between technology providers and their clients to ensure smooth operation and swift resolution during unforeseen circumstances.

While technology advancements have revolutionized our lives, the July 19th outage reminds us of the need for a balanced approach. We must strive for technological innovation while also maintaining preparedness for potential disruptions.

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We detected malicious traffic and took measures to restrict it. We had no negative impact on accounts, data, or infrastructure security. We are monitoring the situation and are 100% operational. It was a DDoS attack that targeted several large banks. It came from a pro-Russian group involved in a similar situation in Ukraine. Her name is NoName75.

BCR representatives to Romanian local platform Economia

Apparently, three banks operating in Romania suffered from the attack: BCR, a subsidiary of Austrian Erste Bank; the Romanian Banca Transilvania, which entered the top three by brand strength this year; and Alpha Bank. All banks communicated that they acknowledged the attack and took immediate measures to reinstate the functionality of their applications for clients.

Before the attack in Romania, NoName75 attacked other banks in Ukraine. However, there is no news regarding the potential loss in bank clients’ accounts.

Despite measures taken to protect the infrastructure by specialized institutions, including the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre in Bucharest, Romania proves it is highly vulnerable to outside DDOS or ransomware attacks. As we warned, this is not the last attack of foreign hackers.

The same or similar groups stole 250 GB of data from the Romanian Parliament’s servers in January, including Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu’s ID. In February, there was a massive ransomware attack on Romanian hospitals, and the attacks will continue.

Meanwhile, the Romanian Antivirus company, now a global leader, won significant prizes in AV competitions. Does anyone notice in Romania?

Why is Bitdefender the best antivirus, a multiple-prize winner, and appreciated worldwide but not in its own country? We’re not advertising here; we’re just puzzled by this paradox. As politicians often mention, a country that pretends to be a regional cybersecurity hub cannot offer protection for its own institutions and banks.

Studies show that each attack financially impacts the vulnerable organization, starting from USD 50,000 and reaching USD 1 million in some instances. A massive ransomware attack on all hospitals in a country can have a much more significant impact.

Will Romania ever wake up from this nightmare and start protecting institutions and companies operating on its territory, or will it let all the individuals and organizations operate their own countermeasures to prevent any DDOS and ransomware attack? If not, at least politicians shouldn’t mention the country being the “regional cybersecurity hub” they pretend it to be.

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The Romanian National Directorate of Cyber Security (DNSC) officially communicated that it is investigating a cyber attack executed with the Backmydata ransomware application, a virus from the Phobos ransomware family, which encrypted data from the servers of several hospitals in Romania that use the HIPOCRATE IT platform.

At least 21 hospitals have been confirmed to be affected by the attack. According to DNSC data, 79 other units in the health system have been disconnected from the Internet, and additional investigations are being conducted on them to determine whether they were (or not) the target of the attack.

It is true. More hospitals encounter problems with the use of a meaningful computer program in the operation of hospitals – it is called Hiprocrate. We do not know exactly how many hospitals there are at the moment. We do not have the information, but we are working with the National Cyber Security Center to elucidate and remedy the causes. From the information we have, between 15 and 20 hospitals throughout the country are affected.

The Minister of Health for Agerpres

Most affected hospitals have backups of data from the affected servers, with data saved relatively recently (1-2-3 days ago), except for one, whose data was saved 12 days ago. This could allow for easier restoration of services and data.

Romania is targeted by hackers almost every week, and the success of the attacks proves the country is vulnerable. A week ago, the Romanian Parliament’s servers were successfully hacked. Previously, other major security breaches occurred in state institutions, such as ministries or agencies, such as the one in April 2022 against some ministries or the one in October 2023 against Romanian media, both from Russian hackers. Still, it has never been such a significant data theft or a crucial institution.

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A few documents have already been published on the Dark Web, and the hackers asked for a ransom of 0.8 BTC, around USD 40,000.

The Romanian Anti-Terrorism prosecutors started an official investigation on Tuesday, January 30. Local media has immediately connected the cyberattack to the upcoming elections; in 2024, Romanians will vote for their president, their mayors, their members of the National Parliament and their members of the European Parliament. Yet, no official communication linked the attack to any state or private group.

The security breach is only the last one in a country famous for the intrusive methods of state institutions in the life of the citizens. Now, the roles have reversed, and the institutions’ representatives feel what it is like to have their data stolen.

Previous security breaches occurred in other Romanian state institutions, such as ministries or agencies, as the one in April 2022 against some ministries or the one in October 2023 against Romanian media, both from Russian hackers. Still, it has never been such a significant data theft or a crucial institution.

The security breach proves the lack of proactive measures by those who were supposed to take them. Among the responsible agencies and departments are the Chamber of Deputies’ IT Department, the STS – Romanian Service for Special Communication, the Cyberint – the Cyber Security Unit within the Romanian Intelligence Service and the DNSC – the Romanian Department for Cyber Security. All these state departments are responsible for applying all the necessary proactive measures to prevent such a cyberattack. They all have failed.

It might be just another ransomware, but it is not. Romania is the country hosting the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre – ECCC. From this perspective, the cyber-attacks only let the Europeans know their data is at risk at any moment.

On the other hand, Romania is also the country of Bitdefender, one of the giants in cybersecurity. The tech company warned Romanian authorities about the risks associated with how state institutions keep their data.

Russian? North Koreans? Individual hackers operating on their own? Who asks for 0.8 BTC as ransom after creating a security breach in the country’s Parliament servers? These are some of the questions the prosecutors, the investigators and the intelligence officers have to answer.

Meanwhile, journalists are free to speculate and to push different scenarios to the public. The truth is yet to be revealed in this case, if ever.

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Parts of the report of the conference discussions were publicly released, revealing some of the issues within the cyber threats.

”Cyber attackers can actively exploit two flaws in the Internet Explorer web browser in the Windows operating system – LogCrusher and OverLog – to be able to take over another device[…]”

Cybersecurity Conference Report 2022

The document reported around 21.911 cyber security breaches and problems, with approximately 150 specific targets. Some speculations point to the war between Russia and Ukraine as being the source of the boost in digital threats.

One recommendation is the update of all search engines and softwares such as Internet Explorer, to be updated and strengthened in the cyber security features and coding.

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Access to the sites gov.ro, mapn.ro, and politiadefrontiera.ro, and cfrcalatori.ro were disrupted by a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks on Friday, April 29.

Killnet, the Russian cyber hacker’s group, claims the attack on the Romanian Institutes’ websites. Killnet threatened to conduct cyber operations against countries and organizations providing material support to Ukraine. Romania was one of the countries targeted after the Romanian government officials mentioned the possibility of helping Ukraine in the conflict with Russia by sending weaponry.

According to the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, Russian state-sponsored cyber actors have demonstrated their ability to compromise IT networks, develop mechanisms to maintain long-term, persistent access to IT networks, exfiltrate sensitive data from IT and operational technology (OT) networks, and disrupt critical industrial control systems (ICS)/OT functions through the use of destructive malware.

Romanian Government IT specialists work with experts from specialized organizations to restore access and pinpoint the source of the problem. Meanwhile, the Romanian Government website (gov.ro) has been restored, but the other institutional sites are still not accessible.

Romanian Intelligence Service communicated on the subject

The Romanian Intelligence Service – SRI issued a press release on the subject:

On April 29, 2022, starting with 04:00, a series of sites belonging to national authorities, respectively financial-banking institutions were the victims of a cyber attack of the Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) type. The attack caused the sites to be unavailable for several hours.

Following the investigations carried out by the CYBERINT National Center within the Romanian Intelligence Service, it was established that the cyber attackers used network equipment from outside Romania. The attackers took control of the equipment in question by exploiting cyber security vulnerabilities, respectively the lack of cyber security measures, and used them as a vector of attack on sites in Romania.

The cyberattack was claimed by the pro-Russian Eastern KILLNET group, which specializes in DDoS attacks. Also this month, the KILLNET group launched DDoS attacks on the sites of institutions in states such as the USA, Estonia, Poland, and the Czech Republic, but also on NATO sites.

The responsibility for ensuring the primary cyber security of the affected infrastructures does not belong to the Romanian Intelligence Service. However, given the scale of the attacks with an impact on national security, the CYBERINT National Center within the Romanian Intelligence Service is actively cooperating with the entities responsible for investigating cyber attacks and remedying their effects.

We specify that the affected sites are not part of the National System for the Protection of IT&C Infrastructures of national interest against threats from cyberspace (ȚIȚEICA) managed by the Romanian Intelligence Service through the National Center CYBERINT.

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Key findings from the 2020 Consumer Threat Landscape Report include:

• Ransomware attacks soar worldwide – Overall, ransomware attacks grew an astounding 485% in 2020 when compared to 2019. Attacks in the first and second quarter of 2020 accounted for 64% of all attacks or 19% higher than the first two quarters of 2019.
  
• Proprietary operating systems dangerous for IoT – Devices with proprietary operating systems make up 34% of what consumers own and responsible for 96% of all detected vulnerabilities. Bitdefender saw an incredible 338% increase in Smart TV vulnerabilities when compared to 2019.
  
• Android used to spread malware and malicious apps – As consumers flocked to video conferencing and sought information about COVID-19, criminals took advantage by hosting fake Zoom download sites and distributing malware-laden apps to spy on users and steal personal data. Thirty-five percent of all Android malware detected came from the Android.Trojan.Agent family followed by Android.Trojan.Downloader at 10% and Android.Trojan.Banker at 7%.
  
• Network-attached storage (NAS) devices led in number of vulnerabilities – The number of vulnerabilities found in NAS devices increased by 198% YoY from 2019 to 2020. While NAS devices may not be amongst the most prevalent devices in homes, they potentially pack the most number of unpatched vulnerabilities.
  
• Potentially unwanted applications (PUA) on the rise – While PUA might not be malicious per se, they can impact user experience by slowing down systems, display unexpected ads or even install additional software. Bitdefender saw a 320% increase in reported PUA in 2020 when compared to the previous year however, quarterly distribution patterns remained similar suggesting consistent growth.

According to the representative of Bitdefender, the company who analyzed the global situation by using its own Global Protective Network, underlined the creativity of the cybercriminals when it comes to developing new ways of exploiting vulnerabilities online.

Our 2020 findings depict consumers under constant assault from cybercriminals looking to capitalize on fear and societal uncertainty accompanying the global pandemic. Cybercriminals will stop at nothing to use outlier events and human empathy to line their pockets. As the pandemic continues we are constantly seeing attacks evolve through malware delivery mechanisms, inventive social engineering and new exploits.  

Bogdan Botezatu, director of threat research and reporting at Bitdefender

Disregard of your option for a certain antivirus or another, it’s crystal clear you cannot possibly survive unscathed in the online environment without protecting your device, might it be a laptop or a smartphone. All the more, the pandemic increased the number of the criminal methods and the criminal attempts for taking your honest earned money. Don’t fall for them!

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Romania was the country of choice for the European Union due to the number of its IT specialists, for the quality of its workforce, but also for the fact that Romania has recently become a cybersecurity supplier for the region. Not to forget mentioning that Romania also hosts Cybercrime Program Office of the Council of Europe and this definitely scored good points for Romania during the country selection procedure.

According to sources, the new agency will create around 50 new jobs and will make Romania an European cybersecurity institutional hub.

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On the other hand, only 1 in 5 security directors admit they don’t have a strategy for mitigating the associated risks. Also, 50% of the directors say they will invest more for protecting their companies.

The cyber attacks goals range from personal data and economic data thefts to political influencing during political campaigns, as we saw recently.

The study was realized online and comprised 6,700 IT specialists from companies with more than 10,000 employees, active in USA, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark and Sweden.

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There were cyber attacks and cyber operations. We talk about cyber espionage and here we have both old and new ongoing investigations regarding operations of hostile states against Romanian fundamental governmental institutions. This way we also send them a message, that we have identified them, that we know what they are doing.

Anton Rog, the director of the Romanian Cyberint Center

Being asked whether the unnamed countries were Russia and China, the security general continued:

I wouldn’t name any country, but your examples are somehow correct. The states are from the East.

Anton Rog, the director of the Romanian Cyberint Center

Without naming the countries and stating that the two examples are “somehow correct“, the Cyberint director doesn’t answer the journalist’s question at all. Even though a part of the Romanian local media presented his statements as a clear indication of the hostile countries, the current protocols of the Romanian Intelligence Service regarding the information which can be presented in mass media don’t allow a clear indication of the culprit, especially during TV shows.

Yet, Russia and China are pretty much “the usual suspects” when it comes to cyber espionage. In the same time, after the general’s statements, it is expected for the Romanian Intelligence Service to offer further explanatory details.

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