Information Security in 2020 – Annual Report of the National Cyber
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Information security in 2020 Annual report of the National Cyber Security Centre Finland Traficom Publications 25/2021 1 Contents EDITORIAL 3 Cyber weather phenomena 4 Network functionality 5 Espionage and influencing 9 Malware and vulnerabilities 10 Data breaches and data leaks 12 Phishing and scams 14 Internet of Things and automation systems 15 Our services 16 Coordination Centre – first aid for information security violations 17 Need for vulnerability coordination has increased 18 Security regulation 19 Assessments 21 Satellite systems are already visible in the everyday lives of people 22 Cooperation and sharing information 26 The coronavirus crisis electrified the international cybersecurity cooperation 28 More reliability with training 28 Cybersecurity Label 29 The free Traficom Anycast service will improve the reliability of .fi domains 30 Safer 5G with lessons learned 31 KYBER 2020 and the revamped HAVARO service 31 Kybermittari – A new cyber threat management tool for managers 32 Our key figures 34 Cyber weather 2020 and a look towards 2021 36 10 information security forecasts for 2021 36 Cyber weather in 2020 38 2 EDITORIAL Cybersecurity became a permanent item on the management’s agenda The safety of mobile networks, especially 5G, was The difficult year still had some good news, too. one of the hottest discussion topics around the Jouko Katainen (Ilmarinen), Jussi Törhönen (Enfo), world. Instructions on measures to minimise the Tomi Vehkasalo (Aditro), Jani Raty (Aditro) received cybersecurity risks of 5G networks were drawn up the ‘Tietoturvan suunnannäyttäjä’ (Information secu- in the EU post-haste. New legislation was prepared rity trendsetter) award for their active cooperation in Finland to protect the critical parts of communi- with the National Cyber Security Centre Finland. cations networks. The national perspective is in a We were also involved in creating the Koronavilkku more prominent position than before in the new coronavirus contact tracing application. It seems legislation and additionally, provides new tools that its information security and data protection for addressing potential cybersecurity risks that solutions were chosen well. Now millions of Finns use threaten national security and defence. the application and support the management of the In the past year, we faced the worst data breach in coronavirus situation in our country. Finland so far when the patient records of the psycho- The exceptional year showed that work and busi- therapy centre Vastaamo ended up in the hands of ness can be safely moved online. We also saw that by criminals. Using the stolen data, the attacker black- cooperating with the authorities and NGOs, we can help mailed both Vastaamo, as well as tens of thousands with human crises caused by cybercrime. The sever ity of citizens who had used its services. We helped the and impacts of the events brought cybersecurity to the victims by means such as collecting instructions on management’s agenda as a permanent item. the website tietovuotoapu.fi together with authorities, In 2021, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of our organisations and companies. The case of Vastaamo CERT activities. These decades have held many surprises. sparked discussion in society on the responsibility of Make sure you follow our website and social me- corporate management to protect critical information dia channels! If you are interested in cyber forecasts pools and systems. It also served as a reminder that a for 2021, you can find them at the end of our report. personal identity code is not a suitable identification method in online services. Helsinki, 11 February 2021 The year was also marked by the Emotet malware; we published a warning about it in August. Sauli Pahlman The purpose of the malware is to steal data from Acting Deputy Director-General organisations. The attack makes it possible to National Cyber Security Centre Finland penetrate deep into the target’s network and start a ransomware attack, for example. Emotet is a good example of a professionally implemented data breach that is used to gain a foothold and create a backdoor in the targeted organisation. At the start of the year, the global pandemic sent us to work remotely in unprecedented numbers. This also meant that the use of vulnerabilities of remote work solutions in data breaches, for example, clearly increased. In addition, international cyber trends entered the Finnish telecommunications networks in February, when a wave of scam calls swept over our country. During February alone, Finnish telecommu- nications operators reported millions of scam calls. 3 Cyber weather phenomena 4 Network functionality Disturbances in 150 Thousands of users Tens of thousands of users communications networks Hundreds of thousands of users 100 It is important to ensure that Finnish communica- tions networks operate as reliably and free from disturbances as possible. Otherwise, the digital 50 services of our society, for instance, cannot func- tion. Based on the disturbance data we collect, we can analyse the root causes of disturbances and improve the reliability of networks by developing 0 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 regulations, among other things. The number of significant disturbances Number of significant disturbances of the functioning of decreased clearly until 2018, and it has remained communications services in 2016–2020. between 65 and 68 ever since. There were 67 significant disturbances in 2020. The number 300 Mass communi- Mobile services cations services of critical disturbances that apply to at least E-mail Fixed network internet 250 connection service 100,000 users decreased, however. As a whole, Other wireless Fixed network network telephone service the trend can be considered positive, even if 200 the decrease in the number of significant distur- bances has stopped. 150 The majority of significant disturbances in Finnish communications networks involve mobile 100 network services, i.e. the functioning of calls, 50 internet connections and SMS. They are caused by factors such as power cuts due to storms that 0 also affect the power supply of mobile network 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 base stations. The mobile network is also tech- Effects of significant disturbances on general communications nically more complex than the fixed broadband services in 2016–2020. One disturbance may affect several network, for example, which is why disturbances services. due to software errors, among other things, are more common in the mobile network. 200 Other cause Fault in the power supply system The number of software and power supply Unknown Software failure system failures has increased since 2019. Careful Equipment 150 Cable break testing of systems may reduce disturbances. Still, facility fault Power cut Hardware failure the quality of hardware and software components Update or modif ication should also be monitored because unreliable 100 components may not be found in the testing. As for updates and modifications, they caused fewer disturbances than before. This is good news 50 and shows that telecommunications operators have worked systematically to develop the 0 maintenance of their services. 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Root causes of significant disturbances in 2016–2020. One disturbance may have several root causes. 5 Dec Jan Feb Internet connections were breaking Nov 2 1 6 up all around Finland and storms 8 Mar caused power failures 4 Oct The nationwide disruption of the internet connec- 44 tion service in Telia’s mobile network on 25 April 7 Apr Total also attracted the media’s interest. Storms also caused significant incidents. In Sep 88 67 particular, Päivö on 30 June and Aila from 16 to 7 17 September caused communication service May disruptions. Telecommunications operators, power 5 Aug grid companies and rescue departments managed 4 11 the disruptions with established routines. The effects of the disturbances remained comparably Jul Jun small compared to the storms a few years before. Distribution of significant disturbances over the calendar months. Remote tools caused concern The public communications services in Finland ment of remote work tools and services was not and the rest of Europe worked well, even though fully controlled, which could lead to uncontrolled a large number of people started working remote- security risks. ly as the coronavirus pandemic spread. We gave advice on using the split tunnel method, In the early stages of the pandemic, the among others. For example, the method can be organisations’ own VPN services and international used to steer the software update traffic past VPN, cloud services, among other things, had capacity which reduces the load on the organisation’s issues. They were resolved mainly in a matter of VPN service. weeks. In March, the use of cloud services multi- The errors and memory lapses in the process- plied globally. In many organisations, the deploy- ing of online service certificates caused widespread Failure in customer data management Data leak Denial-of-service attack Other report >100 Gbit/s 10–100 Gbit/s 1–10 Gbit/s Vulnerability or threat Data breach 0.1–1 Gbit/s 600 4,000 500 3,000 400 300 2,000 200 1,000 100 0 0 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2017 2018 2019 2020 Reports by telecommunications operators on significant The development of denial-of-service attack volumes information security violations and personal data breaches in Finland. Source: Telia in 2016–2020. 6 1 disruptions in the usability of many services. 169 Several of the certificates of Microsoft Teams expired in February. Fortunately, the situation >100 Gbit/s was under control again before the pandemic, because the disturbance struck hard in Western 10–100 Gbit/s 1,446 2,165 countries where the Teams service is popular. In 1–10 Gbit/s early March Let’s Encrypt had to invalidate in a 0.1 – 1 Gbit/s short notice certificates it had issued. DigiCert had to do the same in July, because it had made mistakes in the processing of certificate requests.