Cyber phases of the conflict between Hamas and Israel. Disinformation and content control. Cyberespionage and supply chain vulnerability.

Summary

By the CyberWire staff

At a glance.

Warning of Hezbollah air attack on Israel from Lebanon was a false alarm.
Hacktivists join both sides of Hamas's renewed war.
Disinformation and content control in social media.
Storm-0062 exploits Atlassian 0-day.
Curl and Libcurl vulnerabilities.
Hacktivists and the laws of war.

Warning of Hezbollah air attack on Israel from Lebanon was a false alarm.

Israel went on alert yesterday with warnings of large inbound air attacks from Lebanon, thought to have been mounted by Hezbollah. (Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah is an Iranian client and proxy.) The alert turned out to be a false alarm produced by Israel's automated warning system, the Jerusalem Post reported. What caused the malfunction remains under investigation, but there's no immediately available evidence that the issue was the result of a cyberattack.

Hacktivists join both sides of Hamas's renewed war.

Hacktivist groups whose principal interests lie elsewhere have joined one side or the other in the war between Hamas and Israel. Techopedia offers an updated account of who's in action. The best known groups are the Russian auxiliaries KillNet and Anonymous Sudan; the mission they've been given is fundamentally one of influence and harassment. The war in the Middle East is seen in Moscow as an opportunity to distract Western supporters of Ukraine, ideally to reduce their tangible support of Kyiv's war effort. Palestinian and Islamist groups have also lined up with Hamas. The Indian Cyber Force, normally preoccupied with Pakistan and other South Asian states in tension with India, has come in on the side of Israel, claiming to have taken down Hamas sites and other pages belonging to Palestinian authorities. The confirmed cyberattacks have so far been nuisance-level defacements and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Claims of successful cyberattacks on infrastructure remain for the most part unconfirmed hacker gasconade.

One volunteer group acting for Israel, functions as an augmentation to intelligence services. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Israel Tech Guard, formed by workers in the country's cybersecurity sector, has been concentrating on the labor-intensive work of looking through online content to, among other things, seek to identify and locate Israelis taken hostage by Hamas. The volunteers are also working to secure online tools that contribute to public safety, like the Red Alert app compromised in the early hours of Hamas's assault.

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Disinformation and content control in social media.

Much of the disinformation circulated in the course of the war in the Middle East has been produced in the interest of Hamas, and most of it has circulated in social media. X, formerly known as Twitter, has come under more criticism than other platforms, CNN reported. Disinformation and incitement have run through X, and many observers regard this as a foreseeable result of X's recent dismantling of irs content moderation safeguards. X does retain what WIRED characterizes as a remnant of Twitter's Trust and Safety Team, and that rump team says it's working to reduce the amount of demonstrable misinformation in circulation on X. They've struggled to do so, and a great deal of obvious disinformation continues to emanate from X Premium accounts. European commissioner Thierry Breton wrote X to warn the platform that its failures in this respect may constitute violations of the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA). The Verge reports that Elon Musk, X's proprietor, asked for clarification and said, after an exchange with M. Breton, “I still don’t know what they’re talking about!”

M. Breton also wrote Meta, asking CEO Mark Zuckerberg to ensure that Facebook and Meta's other properties take a close look at their own wartime content moderation. Reuters quotes the letter as saying, in part, "I would ask you to be very vigilant to ensure strict compliance with the DSA rules on terms of service, on the requirement of timely, diligent and objective action following notices of illegal content in the EU, and on the need for proportionate and effective mitigation measures." Meta told CNBC, “After the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel on Saturday, we quickly established a special operations center staffed with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers, to closely monitor and respond to this rapidly evolving situation. Our teams are working around the clock to keep our platforms safe, take action on content that violates our policies or local law, and coordinate with third-party fact checkers in the region to limit the spread of misinformation. We’ll continue this work as this conflict unfolds.”

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Storm-0062 exploits Atlassian 0-day.

Microsoft warns that the nation-state threat actor Storm-0062 has been exploiting CVE-2023-22515, a broken access control vulnerability affecting Atlassian’s Confluence Data Center and Server products, since September 14th. SecurityWeek reports that the threat actor is conducting cyberespionage for China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). For more on Storm-0062's supply chain cyberespionage, see CyberWire Pro.

Curl and Libcurl vulnerabilities.

The latest version of the Linux curl project has been released, fixing two vulnerabilities affecting the curl tool and the libcurl library. One of the flaws is a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability that could lead to remote code execution. CyberScoop notes that the severity of the flaw may have been overhyped before its release, since the vulnerability can only be exploited under very specific circumstances.

Nevertheless, the vulnerabilities merit attention. Johannes Ullrich, dean of research at the SANS Technology Institute, noted, “This is only a valid exploit if you take unvalidated data and create an HTTP request via a SOCKS5 proxy to a hostname created from the unvalidated data. My recommendation is to upgrade without haste. I rate the probability of this happening in actual code as very low. If you accept data, not validate it, and just blindly pass it to libraries like curl, you will likely have other problems that are easier to exploit.” For more on these vulnerabilities, see CyberWire Pro.

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Hacktivists and the laws of war.

OODA Loop takes a look at an essay by officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), "8 rules for 'civilian hackers' during war, and 4 obligations for states to restrain them," that proposes extension of international humanitarian law to wartime hacktivism, and it thinks the recommendations may have amounted to too little and arrived too late. The author, Emilio Iasiello, sees several reasons why a commendable attempt to civilize hacktivist conduct will fall short of expectations. First, it's a purely voluntary, ethical code. Second, the notorious difficulty of attribution of cyber activity will make it difficult to hold hacktivists to any code, voluntary or not. And, finally, it's difficult to imagine what unbiased party might serve as an arbiter of an ethical code: misconduct is, even more than beauty, in the eye of the beholder.

The criticism is well taken. There may, however, be more room for optimism than the OODA Loop piece allows. First, as the critique itself acknowledges, the ICRC officials who wrote the rules for hacktivists are not naïfs. They're aware that the laws of armed conflict are very imperfectly observed and enforced. Russia's war against Ukraine provides ample evidence of that. But their proposal shows how the principles behind the laws of war and international humanitarian law might be applied to action in cyberspace. Proportionality, discrimination, and avoidance of unnecessary suffering all have obvious relevance. The ICRC officials also point out that hacktivists could legitimately be considered, under some circumstances, to have forfeited their noncombatant status. They propose eight rules for hacktivists, but they outline four obligations states have with respect to the hacktivists acting in the states' interests or operating from within the states' jurisdiction. Thus the extension of the laws of armed conflict the ICRC suggests isn't either quixotic or unenforceable in principle. International law evolves with war itself. That's as true today as it was in Nuremberg in 1946.

The CyberWire's continuing coverage of Russia's war against Ukraine, with special attention to the cyber phases of that war, may be found here.

Notes.

Today's issue includes events affecting Australia, China, Gaza, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, NATO/OTAN, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the United States.

Dateline: Russia's hybrid war against Ukraine.

Ukraine at D+595: Sabotage in the Baltic Sea. (CyberWire) Undersea infrastructure sabotage may have aimed to stay below NATO's Article 5 threshold.

In eastern Ukraine, small assault teams quietly advance against Russia (Washington Post) The Ukrainian soldier was alone on the road when he approached the hornet’s nest under his feet: a group of about 10 Russians in a drainage pipe turned into a makeshift bunker.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 596 (Al Jazeera) As we enter the 596th day of the war, these are the main developments.

Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 596 of the invasion (the Guardian) Grain silo in Odesa damaged in drone attack, as Ukraine claims to have foiled attempted Russian incursion into northeastern Sumy region; Putin visits Kyrgystan

Ukraine war latest: Brothers 'helped Moscow' with cafe strike that killed 55; two dead in Russia after shelling (Sky News) Ukrainian security officials have accused two brothers of helping guide a missile strike that killed dozens of people in a village in Kharkiv. Meanwhile, a husband and wife have been killed in a Russian border region.

Finland says ‘state actor’ not ruled out in mystery of damaged Baltic gas pipeline (the Guardian) Nato ministers to be briefed on Balticconnector closure, as Finnish officials say Russia is now treating their country as ‘hostile’

Nato vows to respond if Finland-Estonia gas pipeline damage is deliberate (the Guardian) Alliance’s chief says if there is proof of attack it will be met with ‘determined’ response, amid speculation about Russian sabotage

Has Putin committed an act of war against Nato? (The Telegraph) The destruction of the Balticconnector gas pipeline benefits Moscow as winter approaches. The Finns are up in arms - and we should be too

Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine (U.S. Department of Defense) The Defense Department announced additional security assistance to meet Ukraine's critical security and defense needs.

Austin announces new Ukraine weapons aid, says Israel also will get what it needs (Stars and Stripes) Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. will send another $200 million in new weaponry to Ukraine while also signaling that the Pentagon was gearing up to support Israel in its war against Hamas.

U.S. Aims to Bolster Ukraine's Long-Term Air Defense Capabilities (U.S. Department of Defense) The U.S. will lead a newly formed coalition focused on developing Ukraine's air force in a bid to bolster that country's long-term capability to defend itself against Russian aggression, Secretary of

Germany to send Ukraine $1B in air defense tech, plus more tanks (Defense News) The additional Leopard 1 tanks and Gepard guns, 15 armored transport vehicles, and 20 armored ambulances will arrive in Ukraine in the coming weeks.

Belgium agrees to send F-16s to Ukraine, but not before 2025 (Defense News) Such a decision will need to be confirmed by the country’s next government following elections in May.

The Heritage Foundation and the Truth About the War in Ukraine (Wall Street Journal) ‘It is only superficially about Russia restoring its Soviet boundaries.’

A Hacktivist Code of Conduct May Be Too Little Too Late (OODA Loop) Recently, the International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC) released ethical guidelines for civilian hackers and hacktivists to consider prior to engaging in armed conflicts.  The eight recommendations are based on humanitarian law-based rules in order to protect civilians

Microsoft report outlines Russian cyber-influence attempt in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland (Public broadcasting of Latvia) A new report from Microsoft on the state of worldwide nefarious cyber activity unsurprisingly names Russia as a major criminal player, and includes evidence of some of its specific activities in Latvi...

Attacks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities

Israel-Hamas conflict extends to cyberspace (CSO Online) As a new front opens between Israel and Hamas in cyberspace, countries like India are getting caught in the crossfire.

False Alarm of Hezbollah Aircraft Infiltration Underlines Israeli Concern of Multi-Front War (FDD) Reports of aircraft infiltration and rocket fire on Israel’s northern border on October 11 turned out to be a false alarm caused by Israel’s automated threat detection system....

Another Iraqi Shia militia threatens the United States over involvement in Israel (FDD) Hezbollah Brigades, an Iranian proxy that operates primarily in Iraq but also in Syria, has joined the chorus of so-called ‘Islamic Resistance’ groups in issuing threats against the United States as...

Hamas-Israel Cyber War Escalates: What We Know So Far (Technopedia) Just days ago, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, plunging Palestine and Israel into horrific conflict.

How a security superstate was humbled (The Telegraph) Hamas terror attack exposes failure of Israel’s entire defence policy

The Gaza Strip and its history, explained (Washington Post) Israel is at war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and hundreds of civilians have been killed in the days since the group’s surprise attack on Saturday signaled a major escalation of the conflict between the two sides and engulfed the region in chaos.

What is Hamas, and why did it attack Israel now? (Washington Post) Israel declared war against Hamas on Sunday, following a surprise attack by the Palestinian militant group based in Gaza that included the taking of civilian hostages at a music festival, where at least 260 bodies have been recovered.

What was Hamas thinking? For over three decades, it has had the same brutal idea of victory (AP News) In the three and a half decades since it began as an underground militant group, Hamas has pursued a consistently violent strategy aimed at rolling back Israeli rule.

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology (The Atlantic) A close read of Hamas’s founding documents clearly shows its intentions.

How Could Israeli Intelligence Miss the Hamas Invasion Plans? (Center for Strategic and International Studies) An intelligence failure is like a plane crash: it is never just one thing that goes wrong, it is instead a series of things that add up to a disaster.

Egypt intelligence official says Israel ignored repeated warnings of ‘something big’ (Times of Israel) Cairo official says Israel focused on West Bank instead of Gaza; Egypt's spy chief said to warn PM of 'terrible operation,' Netanyahu denies it

Israel Was Prepared for a Different War (Wall Street Journal) The Israeli military became so focused on intelligence, air power and technology that it was vulnerable to a surprise low-tech ground assault by Hamas.

Israeli Cyber Companies Rally as Digital, Physical Assaults Continue (Wall Street Journal) Disruptive cyberattacks in Israel are growing, hitting business and government websites as Israeli soldiers mass at the Gaza border. Cybersecurity companies in Israel, concerned about more digital attacks in the coming days, are finding ways to keep products and services available.

Pictured: Gaza faces the aftermath of Israeli strikes (The Telegraph) Amid the destruction there is little hope as conflict intensifies in Gaza

A Graphic Hamas Video Donald Trump Jr. Shared on X Is Actually Real, Research Confirms (WIRED) A video posted by Donald Trump Jr. showing Hamas militants attacking Israelis was falsely flagged in a Community Note as being years old, thus making X's disinformation problem worse, not better.

X promises 'highest level' response on posts about Israel-Hamas war. Misinformation still flourishes (AP News) The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, says it is struggling with a flood of posts sharing graphic media, violent speech and hateful conduct about the latest war between Israel and Hamas.

Europe gives Mark Zuckerberg 24 hours to respond about Israel-Hamas conflict and election misinformation (CNBC) EU urges Meta to be "vigilant" about removing disinformation during conflict, ahead of elections.

Elon Musk Is Shitposting His Way Through the Israel-Hamas War (WIRED) X’s Trust and Safety team says it’s working to remove false information related to the Israel-Hamas war. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is sharing conspiracies and chatting with QAnon promoters.

Facebook video of Biden prompts probe into Meta content policy (Financial Times) Investigation will review social media giant’s guidelines after ‘manipulated’ clip wrongfully calls US president a paedophile

MIDDLE EAST : A CYBER ARMS RACE (CYFIRMA) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Despite the region’s superficial media image as a region where religious fanaticism takes primacy in the political landscape,...

Latin American Elections Assessment (ZeroFox) Understand the latest findings and threats to current elections in Latin America

Nasty bug discovered in widely used Linux utility curl, and patches already rolled out (ZDNET) Curl is built into and silently used in numerous Linux distributions. A nasty security hole within it has been revealed and patched.

Long-awaited curl vulnerability flops (Cyberscoop) The flaw in the widely used open source software package was expected to be the next great catastrophe in computer security.

How to Respond to curl and libcurl Vulnerabilities (Synopsys Blog) Understand how to respond to the curl and libcurl vulnerabilities; what you can do to protect yourself, and how can you determine whether you have been affected.

Be prepared to patch high-severity vulnerability in curl and libcurl (Help Net Security) Details about two vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-38545, CVE-2023-38546) in curl will be released on October 11.

State-backed hackers are exploiting new 'critical' Atlassian zero-day bug (TechCrunch) Atlassian says it has received reports from a "handful of customers," but it's not clear if the company yet knows the scale of exploitation.

Shadow PC warns of data breach as hacker tries to sell gamers' info (BleepingComputer) Shadow PC, a provider of high-end cloud computing services, is warning customers of a data breach that exposed customers' private information, as a threat actor claims to be selling the stolen data for over 500,000 customers.

ToddyCat hackers use 'disposable' malware to target Asian telecoms (BleepingComputer) A newly discovered campaign dubbed "Stayin' Alive" has been targeting government organizations and telecommunication service providers across Asia since 2021, using a wide variety of "disposable" malware to evade detection.

New WordPress backdoor creates rogue admin to hijack websites (BleepingComputer) A new malware has been posing as a legitimate caching plugin to target WordPress sites, allowing threat actors to create an administrator account and control the site's activity.

ShellBot Uses Hex IPs to Evade Detection in Attacks on Linux SSH Servers (The Hacker News) Ever heard of an IP address in hexadecimal notation? It's the latest disguise hackers use to deploy DDoS malware on Linux systems.

Manufacturing services tech giant hit with cyberattack (Record) Hackers targeted Volex, a U.K-based company that produces a range of power products for data centers, electric vehicles, and more.

The curious case of the FTX hacker moving funds during Bankman-Fried trial (Washington Post) Where the FTX haul went, where it’s been going and why it wasn’t worse

FTX hacker could be using SBF trial as a smokescreen: CertiK (Cointelegraph) The unidentified FTX hacker may be using Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial as cover for a new spate of illicit fund movements, says CertiK’s director of security operations, Hugh Brooks.

Announcements (First Judicial Circuit Court of Florida) As previously reported, the First Judicial Circuit recently experienced an information technology security event. We responded quickly, shut down our systems to mitigate risk to sensitive information, and began a thorough investigation of the attack, including coordinating with law enforcement agencies and external cybersecurity experts.

BlackCat ransomware group claims attack on Florida court system (StateScoop) Ransomware group BlackCat claimed responsibility for a recent incident that leaked employee data from a court system in Florida.

ALPHV ransomware gang claims attack on Florida circuit court (BleepingComputer) The ALPHV (BlackCat) ransomware gang has claimed an attack that affected state courts across Northwest Florida (part of the First Judicial Circuit) last week.

Security Patches, Mitigations, and Software Updates

CISA Releases One Industrial Control Systems Advisory (CISA) CISA released one Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisory on October 10, 2023. This advisory provides timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS. ICSA-19-029-02 Mitsubishi Electric MELSEC-Q Series PLCs CISA (Update A)

CVE-2023-22515 - Broken Access Control Vulnerability in Confluence Data Center and Server (Atlassian) Atlassian has been made aware of an issue reported by a handful of customers where external attackers may have exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in publicly accessible Confluence Data Center and Server instances to create unauthorized Confluence administrator accounts and access Confluence instances.

Microsoft Defender now auto-isolates compromised accounts (BleepingComputer) Microsoft Defender for Endpoint now uses automatic attack disruption to isolate compromised user accounts and block lateral movement in hands-on-keyboard attacks with the help of a new 'contain user' capability in public preview.

Trends

The 10 Biggest Cyber Security Trends In 2024 Everyone Must Be Ready For Now (Forbes) Facing a predicted $10.5 trillion in cyber attack damages and a landscape swiftly morphing due to AI's rise, discover the top cyber security trends of 2024.

The Wretched State of OT Firmware Patching (Adolus) Insights into the OT vulnerability research aDolus provided to the 2023 Microsoft Digital Defense Report.

Top 10 cyber breaches for the first half of 2023 (PropertyCasualty360) National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is an opportune time to survey the year's biggest cyber breaches.

New Cyber Threat Intelligence Report from CRITICALSTART® Highlights Prominent Threats and Emerging Cybersecurity Trends with Implications Spanning Multiple Industries (PR Newswire) Today, Critical Start, a leading provider of Managed Detection and Response (MDR) cybersecurity solutions and pioneer of the industry's first...

95% of Fintech Apps Across Africa Immediately Expose Valuable, Exploitable Secrets (Business Wire) Approov-sponsored survey of 224 Android apps finds exposed secrets that can be used to reveal personal and financial data

2023 Financial Services Sector Threat Briefing (Trustwave) It is crucial for financial services organizations to minimize cyber risk and prioritize information protection. Our report provides a valuable roadmap for safeguarding your financial empire.

Second Annual Ponemon Institute Report Finds That Two-Thirds of Healthcare Organizations Surveyed Experienced Disruption to Patient Care Due to Cyber Attacks | Proofpoint US (Proofpoint) The average total cost of a cyber attack experienced by healthcare organizations was nearly $5 million, a 13% increase from the previous year

Crypto Is Still the Wild West Almost a Year After FTX Collapse (Wall Street Journal) Regulations aren’t happening as digital currencies have endangered individual investors—not the whole financial system.

Kasada’s 2023 State of Bot Mitigation Report: 96% of Businesses Lost Revenue to Malicious Bot Attacks (Business Wire) Despite spending millions of dollars on bot management, a single bot attack costs 38% of companies $500,000 or more

The 2023 State of Bot Mitigation - Kasada (Kasada) Check out the 2023 State of Bot Mitigation report, which provides findings from companies who are currently using bot management and bot mitigation solutions.

Half of Security Professionals Choose Cybersecurity Risk Over Working with Ethical Hackers (HackerOne) New data reveals trust gap between hackers and organizations

Verizon annual State of Small Business Survey finds small businesses want AI in challenging economy (Verizon) Verizon Business today announced the findings of its fourth annual State of Small Business Survey, conducted by Morning Consult. Comprising responses from 681 small and midsize businesses

US SMBs Urge for Cybersecurity Education as Cyber Threats Hit an All-Time High (Sage) New study reveals 43% gap in cybersecurity education among small and mid-sized businesses, urging collaboration and investment from industry players

Latin American Elections Assessment (ZeroFox) Understand the latest findings and threats to current elections in Latin America

Marketplace

AI Startup Lays Off Workers Again in Fresh Sign of Sector Belt-Tightening (The Information) Deepgram, an artificial intelligence startup selling speech recognition software that generates transcripts, has cut around 20% of staff, or around 20 people, CEO Scott Stephenson said. It was at least the second time this year the San Francisco startup has laid off workers, according to two ...

SentinelOne Has ‘Zero Reasons’ To Consider A Sale, CEO Says (CRN) SentinelOne CEO Tomer Weingarten said the cybersecurity vendor has no reason to seek an acquisition.

Nixu Cybersecurity Index 2023 : Business resilience is the leading driver for cybersecurity investments in northern Europe (MarketScreener) Nixu Corporation, press release, Thursday, October 12, 2023, 10 a.m. [Espoo, Finland] - Nixu, a leading cybersecurity company, today unveils the results of the second...

HMG partnership wtih SANS to train cyber security pros (Register) PARTNER CONTENT According to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 26 percent of medium businesses, 37 percent of large businesses and 25 percent of high-income charities have experienced cyber crime in the last 12 months.

United States Department of Homeland Security Awards New PENS Contract to BlackBerry (PR Newswire) BlackBerry Limited (NYSE: BB; TSX: BB) announced today that the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded BlackBerry® a...

Veterans Affairs awards $331M cyber center task order (Washington Technology) Work supports the department's team responsible for network incident response and monitoring, among other functions.

Ping Identity's YOUniverse 2023 Underscores Commitment to Customers and Acceleration to Cloud (News Release Archive) Annual Event Unveils Fresh Integration Roadmap and New Toolkit for Easy Cloud Migration

Entrust Names John Sorensen as Americas Sales Leader for Digital Security Solutions (Entrust) Entrust, a global leader in trusted payments, identities, and data, today announced that it has named John Sorensen as Regional Vice President (RVP), Sales – Americas, for its Digital Security Solutions portfolio.

IOActive Names Gunter Ollmann as Chief Technology Officer (IOActive) Experienced cybersecurity executive joins IOActive as they deliver next generation innovative security research and services

Products, Services, and Solutions

Fortra Achieves Key Customer Milestone, Expanded Offerings for its Digital Guardian Solution (Fortra) Fortra announced today strong advances in its Digital Guardian product line.

eSure.AI Debuts First All-in-One Home Cybersecurity Insurance Solution (eSure.AI) Partnership with Deep Instinct creates the most powerful cybersecurity and insurance package ever delivered to the consumer market

Appdome Announces New Attack Evaluation Tools in Digital Economy's First Mobile XDR (PR Newswire) Appdome, the mobile one-stop shop for mobile app defense, today released new threat evaluation tools inside ThreatScope™ Mobile XDR to deliver...

Vitrana slashes OSS security vulnerabilities by over two-thirds with CAST Highlight’s software intelligence technology (Yahoo Finance) Vitrana, an international life sciences and healthcare platform provider, has leveraged CAST Highlight’s software composition analysis (SCA) capability to gain insights into their portfolio composition, allowing them to centrally control 15 mission-critical applications, manage their software supply chain’s open-source components and dependencies, and reduce OSS vulnerabilities by over two thirds—all without disrupting developers. Vitrana ope

Carahsoft Named 2023 Public Sector Partner of the Year by Contrast Security (Contrast Security) Code Security Leader Recognizes Carahsoft’s Commitment to Sales, Marketing and Operational Excellence in the U.S. Public Sector.

Agile-Bot to Supply Digital ID Solutions for US Defense Information Service Agency (The Defense Post) Agile-Bot II has received a contract to provide secure digital identification solutions for the US Defense Information Service Agency.

Alarum: NetNut Launched its New SERP Scraper API Product (GlobeNewswire News Room) The solution is the first release of a new product line to provide enterprises innovative suite analysis tools and on-demand data access, developed in...

Exclusive: Inside Ukraine’s secret drone factories (Record) The Click Here podcast team goes inside Ukraine’s military drone industry, where entrepreneurs are putting innovative weapons into the hands of soldiers in a matter of weeks, not months.

SOAR integration arrives for WithSecure Elements (ITWeb) The new capabilities and services can help companies manage risks associated with cyber attacks.

KnowBe4 Integrates With Cisco Duo to Help Organizations Enhance Security Resilience (Yahoo Finance) KnowBe4, the provider of the world's largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, today announced a new integration with its Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training (KMSAT) platform and Duo Security's Single Sign-On offering.

ZorroSign, a Data Security Solutions Provider, Integrates with Provenance Blockchain (Crowdfund Insider) ZorroSign, Inc., a global firm focused on data security solutions built on blockchain, today announced its advanced integration with Provenance Blockchain, the decentralized blockchain purpose-built for financial services “with over $8 billion in real-world financial asset total value locked (TVL).”

Elliptic and BlockTrace Forge Strategic Partnership to Bolster National Security in the Digital Asset Realm (CoinTrust) Elliptic, a prominent blockchain analytics and data intelligence provider, and BlockTrace, an expert in cyber intelligence integration, have unveiled a strategic partnership aimed at enhancing the capabilities of national security entities to safeguard critical infrastructure in the face of evolving cyber threats.

Industry News: Coviant Software Releases Diplomat MFT 9.2 (Coviant Software) Coviant Software Announces Diplomat MFT 9.2

Semperis Expands Forest Druid Attack Path Analysis Tool to Guard Against Entra ID Attacks (Business Wire) New capability extends multi-directory support for Forest Druid to help cybersecurity defenders rapidly close risky attack paths to Tier 0 assets across hybrid identity environments

NordPass' client companies can now store their data in the EU Data Center (GlobeNewswire News Room) LONDON, Oct. 12, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Thursday, the password management company NordPass announced that its Business and Enterprise clients can...

Firefox and Fastly take another step toward a privacy upgrade for the internet (Fastly) Fastly and Mozilla are taking another important step toward a more secure and private internet with Firefox’s adoption of Fastly as an Oblivious HTTP (OHTTP).

Veridas Named a Representative Vendor in the 2023 Gartner® Market Guide for Identity Verification and the 2023 Market Guide for User Authentication (Veridas) Veridas Named a Representative Vendor in the 2023 Gartner® Market Guide for Identity Verification and the 2023 Market Guide for User Authentication Veridas Included for Second Consecutive Year in the Market Guide for Identity Verification and for the second time in the Market Guide for User Authentication Veridas, the Spanish technology company specializing in digital identity […]

CyberArk Launches New Capabilities for Securing Access to Cloud Workloads and Services as Part of Its Identity Security Platform (CyberArk) Only CyberArk Provides the Right Level of Intelligent Privilege Controls to Enable Secure Access to Every Layer of Cloud Environments with Zero Standing Privileges NEWTON, Mass. and PETACH TIKVA, Israel – October 12, 2023 – CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR),...

Technologies, Techniques, and Standards

Standards Body Considers Uncloaking Secret Encryption Algorithms (Zero Day) The European standards body that created secret encryption algorithms for use in TETRA radio communications is weighing whether to make new algorithms public, following backlash over its secrecy.

Perspectives on Security for the Board (Google) Boards can focus on security by, oddly enough, not just focusing on security. What this means is focusing on whether your organization is investing enough in modernizing technology. One of the things that happens when boards just focus on cybersecurity as a siloed priority is you tend to get a disproportionate amount of investment in cyber, and less on upgrading what may be older legacy systems and architectures.

Research and Development

Australian Scholars Develop Cyberattack Protection for Military Robots (The Defense Post) Australian academics have developed an algorithm to protect unmanned military robots from “man-in-the-middle” cyberattacks.

Academia

CYBER.ORG Partners with National Cyber Scholarship Foundation to Empower K-12 Educators and Students with Increased Access to Cyber Resources (Business Wire) CISA-funded workforce development program further expands gamified learning program CyberStart America nationwide to address the cyber skills shortage and cybersecurity workforce gap.

Legislation, Policy, and Regulation

The UN Risks Normalizing Internet Censorship (WIRED) The United Nations' top internet governance body will allegedly host its next two annual meetings in countries known for repressive internet policies and human rights abuses.

EU looks to boost secure submarine internet cables in 2024 (POLITICO) The EU wants to invest in ‘cable projects of European interest’ globally, paper seen by POLITICO showed.

US Space Force pauses use of AI tools like ChatGPT over data security risks (Reuters) The U.S. Space Force has paused the use of web-based generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT for its workforce over data security concerns, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

How criminalisation is being used to silence climate activists across the world (the Guardian) Guardian investigation finds growing number of countries passing anti-protest laws as part of playbook of tactics to intimidate people peacefully raising the alarm

Litigation, Investigation, and Law Enforcement

Cybersecurity Threats Increase Civil and Criminal Liability for Government Contractors (Corporate Compliance Insights) Risks from cybersecurity regulations are particularly acute for government contractors, who must also consider False Claims Act risks.

SEC is investigating MOVEit mass-hack, says Progress Software (TechCrunch) Progress Software said it expects to incur $4.2 million related to a separate, earlier cybersecurity incident in November 2022.

Russia Uber Rival Probed Over Fears Secret Service Gets Data (Bloomberg) Netherlands opens investigation under EU’s data privacy rules. Finnish, Norwegian watchdogs working together on the probe.

Live Updates: The Trial of FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried (WIRED) When Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange collapsed, customers lost billions of dollars. A New York court will decide whether it was fraud.

Opinion Crypto was never more than a solution in search of a problem (Washington Post) During jury selection in the ongoing federal fraud trial of the dethroned crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried, one prospective juror worried out loud about his lack of knowledge of cryptocurrencies, despite his son’s efforts to explain them to him.

Industry Events

For a complete running list of events, please visit the Event Tracker.

Events

2nd Annual Small Business Cyber Summit (Virtual, Oct 4 - 25, 2023) The Summit, sponsored by the US Small Business Administration, will meet each Wednesday in October. Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and voice for America's 33 million small businesses in President Biden's Cabinet, announced that the agency will host a free, virtual National Cyber Summit held throughout October 2023. This second annual cybersecurity forum will help introduce American small businesses to tools, tips, and resources to bolster their cybersecurity infrastructure in addition to exploring new trends and challenges entrepreneurs are increasingly facing.

Navigate 2023: Identity Security Accelerated (Austin, Texas, USA, Oct 9 - 12, 2023) Join us for Navigate, where you’ll explore the next frontier in identity security: Cutting-edge. Dynamic. Accelerated. Endless possibilities. Widely recognized as the industry event exclusively focused on bringing the deepest level of identity security knowledge, expertise and perspective to the market – Navigate is the “can’t miss” identity event of the year. Navigate is the forum for identity practitioners and senior decision-makers alike to get first-hand insight into “what’s next” in identity security. Now is the time to immerse yourself in the modern approach to identity security – the secure path forward to fully protect your business amid the velocity of changes happening across your business.

Join us for the 2023 Gone Phishing Tournament. (Virtual, Oct 9 - 27, 2023) The annual Gone Phishing TournamentTM allows you to benchmark your organization's phishing resilience against true global standards. It's not just an exciting event but also a proven way to build a robust cyber-aware culture within your organization.

Nexus (Miami Beach, Florida, USA, Oct 10 - 12, 2023) An invitation-only, non-commercial security leadership summit, exclusively focused on securing Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Nexus will bring together more than 250 industry leaders whose perspectives on securing critical infrastructure generates invaluable connections and new ideas that move us forward.

Honeywell Connect (Dallas, Texas, USA, Oct 10 - 12, 2023) Join experts and industry peers at Honeywell's premier software symposium dedicated to solving industrials’ most complex performance, sustainability, and OT cybersecurity challenges.

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