August 2015 Volume 1, 2015 1 | Page Connect IT AN ISACA T&T PUBLICATION VISIT US AT WWW.ISACA-TT.ORG IN THIS ISSUE Note from the Board As the current President for the 2015 to 2017 term, and on behalf of the new Board, I would like to welcome our old and new members to another year of leading edge affordable training courses, continuous education sessions and networking events. As usual, we continue to facilitate at least one Chapter meeting every quarter, so stay alert for details on our next meeting where our featured speaker will be exploring the cybersecurity theme related to the ‘Internet of Things’ topic. We look forward to seeing our regular attendees as well as new ones! It’s a great opportunity to network and develop relationships with fellow professionals. At the same time, if you are a subject matter expert on an area of interest to the IT profession, talk to us about facilitating at a Chapter meeting ([email protected]). One of our newest initiatives which we are very enthusiastic about involves building our student advocacy with local universities and tertiary institutions. You can read more about ISACA Cybersecurity Nexus (CSX) offerings and our upcoming CSX scholarship opportunity in support of this initiative. In addition to these activities, the Board is excited to share with you that for the first time the Chapter participated in the Global CyberLympics 2015 competition. Our dedicated team practiced assiduously for weeks and they competed in the first knockout round on August 11 th 2015. Read about their experience in this issue! As we continue to strive to find new and relevant ways to deliver value to our members, we look forward to your active support in our chapter activities. If you are interested in volunteering or have any suggestions, please feel free to forward them to [email protected]. We are looking forward to a great term and hope to see you at our upcoming events! Urmilla Persad President, ISACA Trinidad & Tobago Chapter Meet Our New Board Members: Phishing Attacks – Part 1 Pg. 2 CSX: What is it? Pg. 4 “Meet a Member” Pg. 5 ISACA Scholarship Opportunity Pg. 5 The Cybersecurity Fundamentals Certificate programme offers students an opportunity to learn more about the cybersecurity profession. Our Global CyberLympics Team Pg. 6 Front Row – Left to Right: Jude Williams – Vice President, Urmilla Persad – President, Adrian Fortune – Education Director, Julia Daniel – Secretary Back Row – Left to Right: Derek Haqq - Research, Funding & Academic Relations Liaison, Rita Purdeen – Membership Director, Justin John – Marketing & Communications Director, Alphanso Williams – Certification Coordinator, Ronald Mc Lean – Treasurer. Missing: Esther Mc Carthy-Mills – Past President, Deborah Gamaldo – Programmes Director, Ricardo Fraser – Government & Regulatory Advocacy Director
Transcript
August 2015 Volume 1, 2015
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ConnectIT
AN ISACA T&T PUBLICATION VISIT US AT WWW.ISACA-TT.ORG IN THIS ISSUE
Note from the Board
As the current President for the 2015 to 2017 term, and on behalf of the new Board, I would like to welcome our old and new members to another year of leading edge affordable training courses, continuous education sessions and networking events.
As usual, we continue to facilitate at least one Chapter meeting every quarter, so stay alert for details on our next meeting where our featured speaker will be exploring the cybersecurity theme related to the ‘Internet of Things’ topic. We look forward to seeing our regular attendees as well as new ones! It’s a great opportunity to network and develop relationships with fellow professionals. At the same time, if you are a subject matter expert on an area of interest to the IT profession, talk to us about facilitating at a Chapter meeting ([email protected]).
One of our newest initiatives which we are very enthusiastic about involves building our student advocacy with local universities and tertiary institutions. You can read more about ISACA Cybersecurity Nexus (CSX) offerings and our upcoming CSX scholarship opportunity in support of this initiative.
In addition to these activities, the Board is excited to share with you that for the first time the Chapter participated in the Global CyberLympics 2015 competition. Our dedicated team practiced assiduously for weeks and they competed in the first knockout round on August 11
th 2015. Read about their experience in this issue!
As we continue to strive to find new and relevant ways to deliver value to our members, we look forward to your active support in our chapter activities. If you are interested in volunteering or have any suggestions, please feel free to forward them to [email protected]. We are looking forward to a great term and hope to see you at our upcoming events!
Phishing Attacks – Part 1 How to identify them and what to do By: Aneal Sobie
Phishing is the fraudulent act of contacting a person, often by spam emails, in order to
obtain their personal/financial information such as passwords, credit card or bank account
details, while masquerading as a legitimate source such as a bank or financial institution.
These emails often include a link to a fake website encouraging you to enter your personal
details, which are then harvested for sale or malicious use by the attackers. Over the last
couple of years there has been an increasing number of phishing attacks including a
number of high profile attacks against major organizations, which have been covered in
mainstream media.
Phishing attacks can take place via several channels; emails, web links and phone calls are
the main methods. Most corporate IT departments have implemented measures to detect
and block spam (and by association any phishing emails). While these methods do block a
majority of such attempts, the sheer volume of spam encountered, combined with savvy
attackers making their emails look as legitimate as possible, means it is impossible to block
all without impacting legitimate business communications. Indeed, phishing seeks to
expose vulnerabilities not just on the technological side of Information Security, but
strikes at weaknesses inherent in the user. Be it lack of knowledge, curiosity or just plain
disregard for the dangers posed, there will always be a gap between what a technical
solution can offer and the people and business it is designed to protect. This article was
written with aim of educating end users on how to detect phishing emails and what to do
if one is found.
How to tell if you have received a phishing email
Phishing emails tend to share certain characteristics. While these can vary, if you see
several of these traits listed below, it’s usually a good sign that this is a phishing attempt:
The sender’s email address is different to the genuine name of the organization
The email is sent from a completely different address or a free web mail address
The email does not use your proper name, but uses a non-specific greeting such as
'dear customer’
The email may contain an attachment with an .exe, .pdf or .doc file type among others,
or may contain a .zip or .rar file
The email threatens that unless you act immediately your account may be closed
You're asked for personal information such as your username, password or bank details
The email contains spelling and grammatical errors
You weren't expecting to get an email from the company that appears to have sent it
The entire text of the email is contained within an image rather than text format
and/or the image contains a link to a fake website
Please note that this is not a complete list, and you may encounter legitimate emails which
have some of the characteristics listed here, as well as illegitimate emails which don’t have
these characteristics. (Continued on Page 3)
CONGRATULATIONS
CORNER
Certified Members - June
2014 to July 2015: Ms. Alicia De Montbrun, CISA
Mr. Aneal Sobie, CRISC
Mrs. Annie Sarika Mohammed-Hamid, CISA
Mr. Aryan Guruh Sinanan, CISA
Mr. Capil Davin Boodram, CISA
Mr. Eduard John Mouget, CISA
Ms. Jaiwantie Ramdass, CISA
Mr. Kirk Henry, CGEIT
Mrs. Marcia Paula Valley-Morris, CISA
Ms. Neela Naleene Sookra, CISA
Mrs. Nela Dwarika-Ali, CISA
Ms. Sandra E. Frank, CISA
Mrs. Satee Singh, CISA
Ms. Neela Naleene Sookra, CISA
Ms. Savita Deonarine, CRISC
Mr. Sunil Darryl Ramlochan, CISA
Membership Survey 2015 -
Winners
Sabrina Evelyn – 2 Tickets for a boat cruise Donny Ramsoondar – ISACA token Corenne Camacho – ISACA token
Thank you for your feedback and
participation in our Membership
Survey 2015. The survey results wil l
be shared in our next newsletter!
August 2015 Volume 1, 2015
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Phishing Attacks – Part 1 (Continued from Page 2)
Your best judgment should be used. You may also receive phishing emails from legitimate contacts if their accounts have been
compromised. This is why it is so difficult to block all attacks as there is always the chance to falsely identify an email.
How can I spot a phishing website or link
Here are a few guidelines you can use to identify a phishing email. Again, any one of these factors by itself can be explained, but a
combination of two or more should raise suspicions:
The website's address is slightly different to the genuine name of
the company
There are spelling and grammatical errors on the web page
The site isn't secure. A genuinely secure web address where you're
being asked to send sensitive personal information should always
start: https://. Websites that start http:// are less secure.
The padlock for secure sites isn’t in the website browser, at the top
or bottom of the page. Alternatively, the website may have a green
URL
If suspicious, try resting (but not clicking) your mouse
pointer on the link reveals the real web address, as
shown in the box with the yellow background (see
diagrams)
Phishers also use web addresses that resemble the names of well-known companies but are slightly altered by adding, omitting, or
transposing letters. For example, the address "www.acme.com" could appear instead as: www.acmme.com or www.acme.cn
Beware of phishing phone calls Emails or web links are not the only methods used to get information. Attackers may call posing as a trusted personnel, e.g. Help Desk and
offer to help solve your computer problems.
Once they've gained your trust, cybercriminals might ask for your user name and password or ask you to go to a website to install software
that will let them access your computer to fix it. Once you do this, your computer and your personal information is vulnerable. Corporate IT
or Help Desk functions should NEVER ask an end user for their password, the onus is on end users to treat all unsolicited phone calls with
scepticism. Personal information should not be provided unless you are absolutely sure of the person you are giving it to. A good practice
would be to take their contact details and call them back; this can eliminate most phishing attempts.
Stay tuned for the next article in this series where we will discuss how you can protect yourself and what to do if you are on the receiving
end of a phishing attempt. Feel free to share this and other articles in the series with end users and other IT professionals who may benefit
Aneal Sobie, has over ten years of Information Technology experience. In that time he has worked with Symantec UK, initially as a Senior Security Analyst where he has been responsible for leading the Security Incident Detection and Response teams for various global clients, and then as a Global Operations Security Engineer, responsible for the Design, Build, Maintain of the security infrastructure of the Symantec Cloud global datacentre network. Locally he has worked with several Service Providers as well as within the Oil and Gas sector.
ISACA International will be sponsoring the high-energy
2015 Global CyberLympics competition and is the
exclusive host sponsor of the World Finals to be held
onsite at the CSX 2015 North America Conference in
Washington, DC, USA—19-21 October 2015.
The CyberLympics is an online ethical hacking, computer network defence game, dedicated to finding the top computer network defence
teams. Teams are made up of 4 to 6 players, and each round serves as an elimination round until only winning teams remain. The top
winning teams from every continent get invited to play the game live in person at the world finals.
In May 2015, ISACA T&T Chapter members were invited to volunteer to be members in our Chapter’s CyberLympics 2015 team. Starting in
late June, the team of local volunteers began preparing for the competition, which started on August 11th
2015.
Unfortunately, our team (ISACA CyberSYNners) didn’t make it to the finals, despite valiant efforts during the preliminary round!
Here’s a brief summary of what took place from Team and Chapter Board Member, Ricardo Fraser…
Dear ISACA family, Easily it was the toughest and most exciting four hour challenge I ever faced on a computer! Round one was a forensic challenge where we were given a small fragment of folders and basically asked what was the environment, what was the attacker trying to do and on behalf of whom. No hints or directions were given – only questions asked. The "Olympics" did live up to its billing as a mean exercise! Our team attempted to regenerate or simulate the live environment of the compromised computer. We were ecstatic when we answered our first few questions, when clues were submitted and scored by the system as correct! We even derived that the attacker had created a zombie that was used to steal credit card data via exploiting corporate emails through Reflected XSS, Phishing and Trojans.
But alas! As the clock ticked to eight o' clock, there was a moment of joy as we reflected on history made and what could have been had we journeyed as far as Round 2. Saddened we were, but not dispirited about the fact that we did not qualify into the next round for failure to surmount further tasks. We were not cellar placed nor were we a top team. Certainly there is a dearth of expertise in the use of open source tools to perform digital forensics in our twin isle but the effort was brave.
While we did not conquer all of the challenge's tasks, we demonstrated that despite our diverse backgrounds, we could rise as a people and execute a coordinated approach
in order to tackle a singular challenge. Of this, our team, the entire ISACA family and rest of our country could be proud. There is always room for improvement but I can truly say we held nothing back within the rules of the competition, our personal constraints and our other limitations. I could see our meek start inspiring many dreamers throughout the Caribbean to rise to similar challenges more frequently. Personally it was a gratifying experience for me. (Continued on Page 7)
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Our Global CyberLympics Team (Continued from Page 6)
QUOTE from one of the other team members following the contest: "Now that the competition is over, I would hope that the powers that be would try to build on this remarkable achievement and pave the way for future teams from this country to participate in the competition and perhaps, one day, achieve the grand distinct ion of being the first Trinidad & Tobago Team and Caribbean Nation to win the competition. Thanks again to everyone who assisted the CyberSYNners in getting this far and all the best in your future endeavours!!!" Sincere regards, Ricardo J. Fraser – Outgoing CyberLympics Participant
Team Members
Mr Adrian Ramsingh – Captain Mr. Ricardo Fraser – Administrator and Web Pen-testing Team Lead
Mr. Dwain Mario Baird – Networking Specialist Mr. Shiva V. N. Parasram – Forensics Lead
Team Volunteers
Mr. Anthony Zamore Mr. Rajendra Singh Mr. Roland Kissoon
Team Sponsors
Mr. Anthony Pierre, Mr. Franklyn Neckles and Ms. Beverly Thomas of Petrotrin The Management and Staff of UWI (St Augustine Campus)
Mr. Christian Rodriguez of TSTT The Computer Forensics and Security Institute (CFSI)
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