Cyberattack

White House Issues Update on Cybersecurity Report

J. Nicholas Hoover reporting in InformationWeek: "The White House on Wednesday issued an update of the Obama administration's ongoing cybersecurity work, detailing some of the steps being taken in an effort to secure the nation's networks against cyber attacks and in the process offering some new insight into the administration's future plans. The progress report, issued immediately after a meeting held by White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt with agency secretaries, cybersecurity experts..." more

United States Steps Up Digital Incursions Into Russia’s Electric Power Grid, According to NYT

The United States has shifted its Russia strategy more toward offense and inserted potentially crippling malware inside Russia's electric power grid at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before, according to a New York Times's story that broke over the weekend. more

US Facing a Human Capital Crisis in Cybersecurity, Says CSIS

A new study has been released by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th President that looks into cybersecurity manpower challenges in the United States. The report titled, "A Human Capital Crisis in Cybersecurity," is produced by CSIS - a bipartisan public and foreign policy think tank in Washington. more

A Report on Cyber Espionage Activities of Pawn Storm Over the Past Two Years

Pawn Storm, also known as Sednit, Fancy Bear, APT28, Sofacy, and STRONTIUM, is a cyber espionage organization operating for over a decade which has been particularly aggressive in the past few years. more

Rethinking Protection Technologies: A Change Has Occurred

Talking technical is easy. Distilling technical detail, complex threats and operation nuances down to something that can be consumed by people whose responsibility for dealing with cybercrime lays three levels below them in their organizational hierarchy is somewhat more difficult. Since so many readers here have strong technical backgrounds and often face the task of educating upwards within their own organizations, I figured I'd share 4 slides from my recent presentation that may be helpful in communicating how the world has changed. more

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Apologizes for Data Breach, Blames Russian Agents

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer apologized today at the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation hearing regarding massive data breaches at the internet company, blaming Russian agents. more

Biden Administration Alerts Governors to Rising Cyber Threats on U.S. Water Systems

The Biden administration has issued a stark warning to the nation's governors about the increasing threat of cyberattacks on the United States' water and wastewater systems. more

Gigabyte Motherboard Firmware Exposes Millions of PCs to Potential Cybersecurity Threats

In a potentially damaging cybersecurity revelation, researchers from the cybersecurity company Eclypsium have identified a hidden mechanism in the firmware of motherboards manufactured by Taiwanese company Gigabyte. more

Cyberspace Solarium Commission Report

The Cyberspace Solarium Report released today is another, in an endless string of reports, that disgorge from Washington committees dealing with the eternal mantra of "defending American interests and values in cyberspace." The challenges (and many reports) here trace back 170 years when transnational telecommunication internets emerged. The dialogue and reports scaled in the 1920s with the emergence of radio internets and cyber threats, then again in the early 1980s... more

Toxic Information

U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly worried that hackers could wreak havoc on the financial system. Read the story here in National Journal. Not that we need it, but here's yet another reason to worry about havoc in financial markets: U.S. intelligence officials increasingly fear that computer hackers could wreck banks and large financial institutions, or send stock markets into one more panicked frenzy, by covertly manipulating data and spreading false information. more

If It Doesn’t Exist, It Can’t Be Abused

A number of outlets have reported that the U.S. Post Service was hacked, apparently by the Chinese government. The big question, of course, is why. It probably isn't for ordinary criminal reasons: The intrusion was carried out by "a sophisticated actor that appears not to be interested in identity theft or credit card fraud," USPS spokesman David Partenheimer said. ... But no customer credit card information from post offices or online purchases at usps.com was breached, they said. more

Feds Ask for DNSChanger Deadline Extension As Millions of PCs Could Be Cut Off from the Web

Brian Krebs reporting in Krebs on Security: "Millions of computers infected with the stealthy and tenacious DNSChanger Trojan may be spared a planned disconnection from the Internet early next month if a New York court approves a new request by the U.S. government. Meanwhile, six men accused of managing and profiting from the huge collection of hacked PCs are expected to soon be extradited from their native Estonia to face charges in the United States." more

Why the Blackout Never Happened: Internet Governance Lessons From Poland’s Energy Sector

Poland thwarted a large-scale cyberattack on its energy grid without disruption, offering a rare case study in critical infrastructure resilience, decentralised energy governance, and the balancing act between openness and digital security. more

Sudanese Nationals Charged in Global Cyberattack Campaign

Two Sudanese nationals have been indicted for allegedly leading Anonymous Sudan, a cybercriminal group responsible for over 35,000 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks targeting critical infrastructure worldwide. more

Defending the Network Several Times Over

Modern networks can be attacked in a variety of ways, meaning that companies need different types of protection. This article explains some of the risks involved, and provides some easy ways to deal with them. more