Intersect Insight LLC, an international business development and enterprise viability consultancy, has partnered with PISCES International to expand its global presence.

Intersect Insight will identify opportunities for partnerships among international universities, cybersecurity agencies, and community organizations interested in adopting the successful PISCES model. Enhancing the capabilities of the cybersecurity workforce and safeguarding critical infrastructure must become a global priority. Although our initial focus is in Europe and the U.K., inquiries from all geographies are encouraged.

A key advantage of the PISCES model is flexibility to adapt its business model and curricula to conditions specific to the needs of potential partners. Intersect Insight’s global presence will support the implementation and management of those partnerships. Please contact www.intersectinsight.com for further information and follow-up.

Associate Professor Michael Tsikerdekis will spend 6 months in Greece in 2025 to research implementing a version of the Public Infrastructure Security Cyber Education System (PISCES) at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, working with professor Ioannis Mavridis.

PISCES is a U.S.-based non-profit corporation and program supported by various organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security, state governments, and industry partners to provide free security monitoring to municipalities and boost the education of cybersecurity students.

The goal is to understand the challenges of jump-starting such a program and provide training and support. This also includes studying how students learn to perform as cybersecurity analysts when monitoring real-world traffic. Research on how to effectively prepare the new generation of cybersecurity professionals to address the cybersecurity job gap and build bridges across the two countries is a larger long-term objective of this project.

The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, which is the U.S. government’s flagship program of international educational and cultural exchange, sends approximately 800 American scholars and professionals each year to approximately 130 countries. In these nations, they deliver lectures and/or engage in research across a diverse range of academic and professional discipline.

(This article was originally published on Statescoop)

The city of Beckley has said it’s still working to identify what data has been affected and how much of an impact that the incident has had on its system, which helps govern a population of roughly 17,000 people. Officials have not declared if it’s a ransomware attack or which group is behind the incident.

“We are working diligently to investigate the source of the incident, confirm the incident’s full scope and impact, and identify whether data may be impacted,” the statement reads.

The cyberattack is one of the first against local governments in 2024, following a year full of cyberattacks targeting all levels of government, including many local governments across the U.S.

In the heart of Big Sky Country, a new chapter in cybersecurity education is unfolding at the University of Montana

Inside the scenic halls of University Center, a small team is emerging, ready to tackle the digital frontiers in partnership with Public Infrastructure Security Cyber Education System (PISCES)- the pioneering organization at the forefront of data security training.

Ford Powers, a representative from PISCES and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), has been collaborating with a team inside the University of Montana (UMT) Security Operations Center (SOC) to officially launch the PISCES program at the university. PISCES offers no-cost cybersecurity monitoring to small local governments. Simultaneously, their innovative approach utilizes metadata and alerts collected from those networks as “live fire” curriculum, engaging with over 20 colleges and universities across the country to train the next generation of cybersecurity network analysts – the 10th-fastest growing job in the country.

The UMT team is composed of Jace, the SOC manager, and his diligent student interns, Phoebe and Ryan.

Beginning with the basics, the students and staff began navigating the PISCES stack, ticket-management in MantisBT, and data mining in Kibana. Armed with newfound knowledge, they delved deeper into the intricate dance of security analysis, deciphering the cryptic messages hidden within the PISCES communities.

In the midst of the hundreds of thousands of alerts, Phoebe’s keen eye caught something interesting and she raised a question— why does this particular alert contain a JA3 Hash bearing the ominous moniker Trojan.AndroidOS.Jocker? The team began to unravel the digital threads, uncovering a theoretical clandestine presence lurking within the particular community’s network. It was a moment of revelation, as Phoebe and Ryan realized they had very well stumbled upon their maiden discovery— a potential threat of the highest order.

Together, they meticulously pieced together the puzzle, researching quickly but thouroughly, ultimately working with the staff to contact the community and alert them to the potential threat that loomed within their midst. Days later, a response echoed back, confirming their suspicions— a rogue Android tablet had been identified within the community’s Water Treatment Plant network, a silent sentinel harboring unseen dangers.

With the stage set, a PISCES’ oversight analyst, stepped into the fray, guiding the community through the labyrinth of verifying and remediating this threat. Through a delicate dance of investigation and collaboration, the true nature of the risk was finally identified— a quirk in the tablet’s installed apps was now secure and the observed alert was removed from this communities’ critical infrastructure.

This is just a small example of the critical work happening at schools around the nation participating in the PISCES program. Partnering together with communities and students, forging ahead into the digital unknown, where each discovery brings them one step closer to securing the future of Montana and the nations’ cyber landscape.

PISCES: infrastructure protection, work force development, research.

Find out more about PISCES at piscesintl.wpenginepowered.com.

This advisory is for organizations that use Veeam ONE to monitor virtual infrastructure, backup infrastructure, and data protection environments. If your organization does not use this platform, this notification may be discarded.

Summary
Veeam has released hotfixes to address four vulnerabilities, two of them critical, present in the Veeam ONE platform. The first critical vulnerability may allow an unauthenticated user to gain information about the SQL server connection that Veeam ONE uses to access its configuration data base, introducing the potential for an attacker to perform remote code execution on the SQL server hosting the database.

The second critical vulnerability may be leveraged to leak the NTLM hash of the account used by the Veeam ONE Reporting Services to an unprivileged user with access to the UI.

CVE-2023-38547 – This unspecified flaw could be exploited by an unauthenticated user to gain information about the SQL server connection used by Veeam ONE to access its configuration database. CVSSv3: 9.9

CVE-2023-38548 – Vulnerability that could allow an unprivileged user with access to the Veeam ONE Web Client to obtain the NTLM hash of the account used by the Veeam ONE Reporting Service. CVSSv3: 9.8

Affected Products/Versions
Veeam ONE 11, 11a, 12

Mitigations
A Hotfix to resolve these vulnerabilities is available for:

1. Veeam ONE 12 P20230314 (12.0.1.2591)
2. Veeam ONE 11a (11.0.1.1880)
3. Veeam ONE 11 (11.0.0.1379)

To apply the hotfix, admins must stop the Veeam ONE monitoring and reporting services on impacted servers, replace the files on the disk with the files provided by the hotfix, and restart the services to deploy the fixes.

Hotfixes
https://www.veeam.com/kb4508#:~:text=Download%20Hotfix%20That%20Matches%20Installed%20Build%20Number

Additional Resources
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/veeam-warns-of-critical-bugs-in-veeam-one-monitoring-platform/ https://www.veeam.com/kb4508