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UN Aviation Agency Concealed Serious Hack; "a significant threat to the aviation industry."



 
 
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Old March 1st 19, 05:02 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting
Larry Dighera
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Default UN Aviation Agency Concealed Serious Hack; "a significant threat to the aviation industry."


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montr...show-1.5033733

http://www.cbc.ca/1.5034177
Montreal-based UN aviation agency tried to cover up 2016 cyberattack,
documents show

November 2016 hack was the worst in agency's history
Debra Arbec · CBC News · Posted: Feb 27, 2019 4:00 AM ET | Last
Updated: February 27

ICAO would 'have been a one-stop shop for hacking everybody else in
the aerospace industry,' said online security expert José Fernandez.
(Louis-Marie Philidor/CBC)

In November 2016, the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) was hit by the most serious cyberattack in its
history, and internal documents http://www.cbc.ca/1.5034177 obtained
by CBC suggest key members of the team that should have prevented the
attack tried to cover up how badly it was mishandled.

As the United Nations body that sets standards for civil aviation
around the world, ICAO is the gateway to everyone in the aviation
industry, so an uncontained cyberattack left not just ICAO vulnerable,
but made sitting ducks of its partners worldwide.

The documents obtained by CBC suggest the hacker was most likely a
member of Emissary Panda, a sophisticated and stealthy espionage group
with ties to the Chinese government.

At ICAO, investigators found a network full of holes, with security
vulnerabilities that should have been flagged years earlier.

José Fernandez, a cybersecurity expert and professor at Polytechnique
Montréal, said what happened at ICAO is akin to leaving your car
unlocked and allowing a criminal to use the vehicle to commit a crime.

What is Emissary Panda, and how does it hack its targets?

ICAO begins discussions aimed at reaching global aviation
emissions deal

Feature
The problem with runways at Canada's major airports

"If a large organization like ICAO leaves its infrastructure
unprotected, or not well protected, it is allowing criminals or, in
this case, cyberspies to use that infrastructure to spy on other
people."

The documents show that the breach was discovered by an outside
agency, and what should have been a race to contain it was mired in
delays, obstruction and negligence. The documents suggest that four
members of ICAO's information and communications technology (ICT)
department tried to hide evidence of their own incompetence, and their
absentee supervisor allowed that to happen.
ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu, right, and federal Transport
Minister Marc Garneau, attend the opening of the ICAO World Aviation
Forum in November 2015. (Paul Chiasson/CP)

Despite the gravity of the attack, and the confusion of the ICT team's
response to it, confidential sources have told CBC that ICAO Secretary
General Fang Liu shelved internal recommendations to investigate the
four ICT team members and their boss, James Wan, ICAO's deputy
director of information management and general administration.

All five still work at ICAO.
Classic 'watering hole' attack

The documents obtained by CBC, which are assessment reports that
include emails and an "information security incidents summary," show
that a cyberintelligence analyst working for an independent agency
known as the Aviation Information Sharing and Analysis Center first
flagged the cyberattack on Nov. 22, 2016.

Documents obtained by CBC http://www.cbc.ca/1.5034177 suggest the
hacker was most likely a member of Emissary Panda, an espionage group
with ties to the Chinese government. (Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters)

That analyst, Adam Weidmann, contacted ICAO's information security
officer, informing that officer that a hacker had control of two of
ICAO's servers and was using them to spread malware to foreign
government websites.

The type of attacker they were dealing with posed "a significant
threat to the aviation industry," Weidmann said.

Since ICAO's role is to set standards for civil aviation rather than
keep planes in the air, the hacker was not likely scheming to disrupt
flights or airlines, said Fernandez.

But for the purposes of cyberespionage, "ICAO would be a natural
choice," Fernandez said. "They would have been a one-stop shop for
hacking everybody else in the aerospace industry."

This attack had all the hallmarks of a classic "watering hole" attack,
in which hackers find a website that their targets frequent and infect
it with malware in order to gain access to those targets.

Within 30 minutes of the hack on ICAO, at least one of the UN agency's
192 member states, Turkey, had been compromised.

It turned out the attackers had set up a chain of watering holes,
which included ICAO's online store for aviation publications, as well
as the Turkish treasury board's website.

Anyone visiting either site had the potential of becoming infected.
Widespread privacy breach

Alarmed, ICAO's information security officer gave the ICT team until
noon on Nov. 23, the day after the discovery of the hack, to get the
infected servers offline, and contacted a UN-affiliated IT agency in
New York to tell them what had happened.
The hacker used a classic watering hole attack: find a website your
targets frequent — ICAO — and infect it with malware to gain access to
those targets. (Hélène Simard/CBC)

"Timing is of the essence," said Ali Arasteh, a cybersecurity
consultant at FireEye, which investigates attacks of this nature. "You
need to line up all of your organizational resources to abruptly
remove the attackers from the net."

The documents obtained by CBC suggest that wasn't the case at ICAO.
Its ICT team dismissed the expertise of the New York-based UN
analysts, handing over data that was not useable and late, and in some
cases, not bothering to answer emails for days.

On Dec. 5, ICAO's information security officer, who was co-ordinating
the recovery response with investigators, finally sought and obtained
the go-ahead to fly in one of the UN analysts for four days. But even
when face to face with the ICT team, the documents show it took three
days of repeated requests before the analyst was granted access to the
data logs and to the infected servers.

At first, the ICAO attack was thought to be limited to "one severe
incident" on two of the organization's most sensitive servers. But on
Dec. 7, the analyst brought in from New York discovered it was more
widespread.

ICAO's webmail server, domain administrator and system administrator
accounts were all believed to have been compromised, giving the
cyberspy access to past and current passwords of more than 2,000 ICAO
users, which would allow the spy to read, send or delete the email of
any of those users.
As the UN body that sets the standards for civil aviation around the
world, ICAO is the gateway to everyone in the aviation industry. (CBC)

It also meant the hacker could access personnel records of past and
current employees, medical records of those who had used ICAO's health
clinic, financial transaction records and the personal information of
anyone who had visited the ICAO building or registered on an ICAO
website.
Encrypted files go home

Upon the discovery of the more extensive breach, the documents show,
ICAO's information security officer asked that the infected webmail
server be decrypted, so that people who may have had their privacy
invaded could be identified and advised that their personal
information was at risk.

Wan, the ICT team's boss, rejected that request outright. However, a
couple of days later, one of the ICT team did just that, taking an
encrypted file home to try to decrypt it.

"He ought to have known that through his actions, he recklessly
compromised the security of confidential data," read one of the
documents obtained by CBC.

The same day, the New York-based UN IT analysts were struggling to
decrypt the file. They were told by the ICAO ICT team that if they
didn't succeed in doing so by day's end, they were to delete the file.

However, the New York team did succeed in decrypting it, and what they
found further alarmed them.

The file tied the superuser account of one of the ICT team members,
the systems infrastructure associate, to the attack.

That could mean that a hacker remotely accessed that superuser
account, or it could mean that the superuser himself, the
infrastructure associate, was party to the cyberattack: the analysts
had no way of knowing which it was.

Despite the suspicions raised about that superuser, he was given the
job of validating the New York analysts' forensic work. That ICT
superuser disputed the analysts' findings, concluding their detection
of malware was a "false positive" — in other words, that no malware
was to be found.
The four ICT team members, bottom, reported to James Wan, centre, who
told ICAO Secretary General Fang Liu, top, that the entire
cybersecurity incident was a minor one, overblown by the New York
analysts. (CBC/Hélène Simard)

Based on that report, Wan reported to ICAO's secretary general that
the entire cybersecurity incident was a minor one, overblown by the
New York analysts.

The documents indicate that ICAO's information security officer asked
for an independent review of the false positive findings. That request
was declined.
ICT team escorted from ICAO

The documents obtained by CBC show that by this time, Wan's superior,
Vincent Smith, appeared to lose faith in the ICT team.

On Dec. 20, the documents show, Smith lodged a formal complaint with
ICAO, alleging that the four ICT team members had "acted with intent
to disguise the source, nature and impact of a breach of the ICAO
network."

The following day, all four were escorted from ICAO headquarters and
placed on paid administrative leave pending further investigation.

ICAO's malware problems still weren't resolved.

On Jan. 4, 2017, more than six weeks after the discovery of the
breach, a representative of ICAO's Nordic delegation notified ICAO
that someone she didn't know had used her account to send an email,
making it look as though it came from her.

The documents show James Wan, deputy director of information
management and general administration, told her that was a "common
threat in today's digital world," advising her to permanently delete
the suspicious email, without investigating further.

Wan, meanwhile, was himself under scrutiny.

By the new year, an independent cybersecurity firm, SecureWorks, was
brought in to ICAO to carry out its own forensic analysis of the
attack.

Investigator David Peck complained on Jan. 17 that Wan had "engaged in
a pattern of obstruction, deception, insubordination, and incompetence
in his handling of the ongoing cybersecurity response."

Peck concluded the security issues dated back at least three years.

Crucially, the malware used in the cyberattack had been identified by
ICAO's anti-virus software 12 months earlier, but the network was
never disinfected — even though one of the ICT team's most basic
responsibilities is to identify viruses and get rid of them.
The November 2016 cyberattack on ICAO was the most serious in its
history. (Louis-Marie Philidor/CBC)

Peck blamed Wan, who, according to the documents, was advising other
managers that "ICAO systems were clean and safe," even while
SecureWorks was reporting that there was no guarantee the hacker
couldn't compromise "the new systems using the same vulnerabilities."

David Peck did not respond to requests for comment from CBC News.

In the critical weeks right after the attack, Wan took leave or simply
stayed home on three different occasions. He made ICAO's information
security officer accountable for the forensic analysis in his absence,
but didn't grant that officer the authority to act.

Sure enough, during one of Wan's absences, ICAO received a malware
alert about a password-stealing virus on a server.

A flurry of urgent emails requesting Wan's approval to isolate the
server went unanswered for three and a half days.

On Jan. 12, when he was asked in an email to approve a long-term
action plan to improve ICAO cybersecurity that had been developed by
the New York IT analysts and SecureWorks, Wan never replied.

Several followup emails over the span of a week, in which the
SecureWorks investigator told Wan that ICAO "still remains at high
risk for another issue" and that "what could happen could be far worse
than before," were never answered.

Wan went on emergency leave, and the plan was never approved.

CBC News contacted the four ICT team members, James Wan and Fang Liu
for comment. None responded to repeated requests for an interview.

ICAO's chief of communications, Anthony Philbin, did provide a
statement.

"Decisions made by ICAO regarding the 2016 incident you've referenced
were based on forensic evidence provided by two independent expert
bodies," Philbin said.

"I'm sure you'll understand that it wouldn't be prudent for me to
discuss more specific details with media on matters relating to ICAO
security measures, cyber or otherwise."

Philbin offered reassurance that "ICAO maintains no type of financial
or other private information which could possibly pose risks to
individual Canadians."

Later Wednesday, after this article first appeared, Philbin sent a
second statement, saying the gravity of the malware found on ICAO's
servers in 2016 "has been greatly exaggerated in the CBC account."

"We're not aware of any serious cybersecurity ramifications for
external partners which resulted from this incident, and as a
standards-setting body, with no operational role or mandate in
aviation, the inference that our data security could pose risks to the
combined aviation and aerospace sectors, or the general public, is
grossly inaccurate," Philbin said.

He also said that since the 2016 event, "ICAO has made robust
improvements to its cybersecurity posture and approaches to mitigate
further incidents."

Federal Transportation Minister Marc Garneau said Wednesday that he
would be speaking to ICAO's secretary general to find out more about
the incident.

"Obviously, we, as a member of ICAO, will want to make sure that any
information that we share with them is protected," Garneau said.
No heads rolled

The full extent of the cyberattack and what the attacker was truly
after is not revealed in the documents obtained by CBC.

A full list of organizations that may have been compromised was also
never uncovered, because a file in the server containing that
information mysteriously disappeared.

The four ICT members marched out of ICAO on Dec. 21 were back at their
jobs six weeks later, on Feb. 6, 2017.

A confidential source told CBC there was pressure from higher up the
United Nations chain to return them to work, where they are to this
day.

Polytechnique Montréal's Fernandez said ICAO should have done better.
He said it has a responsibility to protect its own data and that of
its direct partners, as well as the general public's confidential
information.

------------------------------------
https://www.securityweek.com/un-avia...ous-hack-media

UN Aviation Agency Concealed Serious Hack: Media
By AFP on February 28, 2019

The Montreal-based United Nations aviation agency concealed for months
a hack of its computers and allowed malware to spread throughout the
airline industry, Canada's public broadcaster reported Wednesday.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) had in November
2016 been the victim of the "most serious cyberattack in its history,"
Radio-Canada said.

Internal documents obtained by the broadcaster revealed a flawed
response to the attack -- believed to have been launched by a Chinese
hacker group -- mired in delays, obstruction and negligence, and
attempts by staff to hide their incompetence.

American airplane maker and defense contractor Lockheed Martin was the
first to raise concerns, alerting the ICAO that its servers had been
hijacked to spread malware to government and airline computers.

In an email to the ICAO, the Lockheed Martin cyberintelligence analyst
described the attack as "a significant threat to the aviation
industry." It had the characteristics of a "watering hole attack" that
targets visitors to a website.

The UN agency, working with 192 member states and industry groups, is
responsible for setting international civil aviation standards,
including for safety and security.

The ICAO information technology team reached out to a New York-based
IT agency affiliated with the UN to analyze the attack, but then
rejected its expertise -- not bothering to respond to emails for
several days or transmitting unusable data.

It would take a fortnight before an analysis revealed that the
intrusion was actually an even bigger problem.

Mail server, domain administrator and system administrator accounts
were affected, giving hackers access to the passwords of more than
2,000 ICAO users to read, send or delete emails.

Within 30 minutes of the ICAO piracy, at least one member state's
website, Turkey, had been infected.

But the ICAO tech chief continued to downplay its seriousness.

An independent investigation in 2017 would conclude that the malicious
software used in the attack had been identified by ICAO antivirus
software a year earlier, but that the computers had still not been
disinfected.

The ICAO told AFP that the Radio-Canada report contained "many
erroneous interpretations and conclusions," saying the gravity of the
malware found on its servers "has been greatly exaggerated."

"We're not aware of any serious cybersecurity ramifications for
external partners which resulted from this incident," it said.

"And as a standards-setting body, with no operational role or mandate
in aviation, the inference that our data security could pose risks to
the combined aviation and aerospace sectors, or the general public, is
grossly inaccurate."

The agency also has made "robust improvements to its cybersecurity
posture and approaches to mitigate further incidents," it said.

In Ottawa, Canadian Transportation Minister Marc Garneau called the
revelations "worrying" and vowed to discuss them with ICAO boss Fang
Liu.
------------------------------------------
 




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