Black Arrow Cyber Alert 22/12/2022 – ACTION REQUIRED: LastPass Security Incident Update
Executive Summary
LastPass has today provided an update to investigations of its security incident described in our Advisory of 02 December 2022. LastPass has now confirmed that customer data, including encrypted copies of password vaults, has been accessed and downloaded by malicious actors. While LastPass is still stating that the protected data should be secure if its best practice guidance was followed, we recommend, as advised by LastPass, that all users should reset the master password for their account and ensure that multi-factor authentication is enabled wherever possible. Given our focus on reducing risk, we also recommend that users should change the passwords stored within the service at the earliest opportunity, and prioritise those in the most critical accounts.
What’s the risk to me or my business?
LastPass has confirmed that the following un-encrypted data has been accessed during the data breach: “company names, end-user names, billing addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, and the IP addresses from which customers were accessing the LastPass service.” LastPass has also confirmed that website URLs for end user accounts were also copied, along with encrypted fields such as “website usernames and passwords, secure notes, and form-filled data”, but noted that these fields remain 256-bit AES encrypted, and should be protected from brute force attack.
LastPass also notes that customers may be targeted with phishing attacks, credential stuffing and other brute force attacks against online accounts associated with the LastPass Vault.
Although the latest information provided by LastPass is troubling, Black Arrow continues to recommend the use of password managers such as LastPass as part of a defence in depth approach to cyber security. Password managers can reduce the overall risks caused by practices such as using weak passwords, re-using passwords and writing down passwords.
What can I do?
LastPass notes that if the master password exceed 12 characters (as per LastPass’ default settings post-2018) and best practices, then end user master passwords should remain secure. However, LastPass notes that if the password did not meet its defaults then the number of attempts needed to brute force the password could be significantly reduced.
As above we recommend that all users should reset the master password for their account, and ensure that multi-factor authentication is enabled wherever possible. We also recommend that users should change the passwords stored within the service at the earliest opportunity, and prioritise those in the most critical accounts.
Further information on this security incident be found here: Notice of Recent Security Incident - The LastPass Blog
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