New advice to defend against malicious cyber actors

Cyber security organisations in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore publish advice to defend against malicious cyber actors.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has joined with he US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Multi-State Information Sharing Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), the New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NZ NCSC), and the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) to publish recommended mitigation for cyber attacks leveraging vulnerabilities to target Accellion File Transfer Appliance (FTA) customers.

The advisory states that organisations with Accellion FTA should temporarily isolate or block internet access to and from systems hosting the software and assess the system for evidence of malicious activity including the IOCs, and obtain a snapshot or forensic disk image of the system for subsequent investigation.

Accellion has announced that FTA will reach end-of-life (EOL) on April 30, 2021. Replacing software and firmware/hardware before it reaches EOL significantly reduces risks and costs.

The NCSC recommends following vendor best practice in the mitigation of vulnerabilities.

An NCSC spokesperson said: “The NCSC is committed to protecting the UK against cyber attacks and, working alongside our allies, we will continue to strengthen our defences to make us the hardest possible target. We would encourage Acellion File Transfer Appliance customers in the UK to follow the recommended mitigation outlined in this advisory and report any suspicious activity to the NCSC.”