How to Protect your Vendor Ecosystem from the Impact of Cyber Warfare

Written by Ferhat Dikbiyik
Additional Contributor Yavuz Han
Edited by Haley Williams

In the last 24-36 hours, state-sponsored hacker groups publicly disclosed which flag they’re representing in cyber battle. The notorious Conti ransomware gang declared their support for Russia and intentions to execute cyber-attacks within their full power against countries supporting Ukraine. Additional volunteer underground hacker groups, including Anonymous, asserted their counter shortly after, supporting Ukraine and stance against Russian institutions.

These bold escalations have increased concerns significantly for many companies worldwide about the safety of their digital supply chain. Black Kite’s platform provides visibility to its customers around the overall cyber risk of any vendor, including ransomware susceptibility and DDoS resiliency in relation to Ukrainian and Russian-based assets.

Identify Possible Targets in Your Vendor Ecosystem

With multiple attack vectors and malware used in the Russian – Ukrainian cyberattacks, such as HermeticWiper and Cyclops Blink (replacement of VPNFilter malware), there is no single way of protecting your vendor ecosystem against escalating cyber threats.

Some countries publicly stated their support for either side of the crisis, likely ranking themselves higher on threat actors’ hit lists. Vendors from these countries might be more subject to cyberattacks, especially vendors residing and owning IT assets in Ukraine and Russia.

Black Kite can determine vendor risk by identifying the location of IT assets of the companies and also their vendors (4th parties). With smart tags, Black Kite alerts customers to the impact of cyber incidents related to the Russia-Ukraine war on their vendor ecosystems.

Understand the Cybersecurity Posture of Your Third and Fourth Parties

Threat actors might advance their way upwards in the supply chain by initially attacking a fourth party vendor (vendor of a vendor). Even if a vendor is not directly related to targeted countries, your company might still be impacted due to a targeted fourth party.

In addition to smart tags, Black Kite follows and applies commonly-used frameworks developed by the MITRE Corporation to score software weaknesses consistently and transparently, converting highly technical terms into simple letter grades. The vendors with lower grades can appear as easy opportunities to threat actors, and in turn, quickly be targeted. Organizations can also share technical details with their vendors with one click, alerting business partners to vulnerabilities and allowing them to improve accordingly.

Understand the Ransomware Susceptibility of Your Vendors

The Conti ransomware group is not alone in attacking organizations they perceive as “enemies.” Methods such as weaponizing data-wiper malware to extort companies, or simply hinder their operations, emphasize the need to monitor vendor ransomware risk and the anomalies in their ecosystems.

IoC lists are available in open sources. Playbooks of infamous gangs analyzed by research groups can also help understand their TTPs. For instance, Black Kite Research recently published three different analyses of Conti’s methods, playbook, and victims. CISA also published an alert about the destructive malware targeting organizations in Ukraine, including technical details.

Black Kite’s Ransomware Susceptibility Index™ (RSI™) follows a process of inspecting, transforming, and modeling collected from various OSINT sources (internet-wide scanners, hacker forums, the deep/dark web, and more). Using the data and machine learning, the correlation between control items is identified to provide approximations.

With the RSI™, organizations can understand which vendors are most prone to ransomware and develop a practical course of action for remediation by cross-correlating findings with Black Kite’s Cyber Risk Assessment.

Monitor the DDoS Resiliency of Your Vendors

Threat actors exploit Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to block services and interrupt business. This method has become a primary weapon used by state-sponsored hackers to paralyze the target systems.

Russian hackers used this DDoS cyber weapon to attack Ukrainian state banks and public institutions on both February 15 and 23, 2022. The attacks resulted in service disruptions for hours, creating a ripple effect throughout the government institutions as a whole.

It’s possible adversaries might use the same weapon for companies to target your vendor ecosystem. Therefore, monitoring DDoS resiliency is imperative. Begin asking vendors to block suspicious IP addresses, such as IP addresses in the blacklists due to botnet infection and IP addresses originating from Russia and other wary countries. Threat actors are suspected of using VPN and ToR services to hide their tracks, so blocking IP ranges of Free VPN and ToR services is meaningful.

One of the 20 Black Kite Cyber Risk Assessment categories is DDoS Resiliency, which results from 15 different potential DDoS checks and detects any potential DDoS amplification endpoints. The data is collected from non-intrusive scanners and other internet-wide scanners.

Organizations can filter vendors with respect to their DDoS ratings and inform vendors rating lower about the misconfiguration.

In Conclusion

• Monitor your third and fourth parties’ cyber security posture
• Identify possible targets in your vendor ecosystem (IT asset locations might help)
• Confirm vendors have the IoC list of possible malware in use by state-sponsored hackers
• Monitor the ransomware susceptibility of your vendors. Ensure they patch recent critical vulnerabilities, use up-to-date services, do not have critical open ports such as RDP or SMB, and correct email configuration to mitigate phishing attacks
• Monitor the DDoS resiliency of your vendors and make sure they block suspicious IP addresses

Get a Free Vendor Risk Assessment Today

Black Kite offers a free vendor assessment for up to five vendors here. Act now and request your free vendor assessment to see the possible impacts of the Ukraine-Russia war in cyberspace on your vendor ecosystem.

Cyber Attack Timeline

Our research team has compiled a list of cyber attacks and events that have occurred during the Russian invasion of Ukraine – this will be updated as more intelligence comes in.