Governments seek to curb malicious use of commercial spyware.

Summary

By the CyberWire staff

At a glance.

US State Department imposes visa restrictions over misuse of spyware.
International conference seeks to address commercial spyware abuse.
Netherlands calls out Chinese state-sponsored hacking campaign.

US State Department imposes visa restrictions over misuse of spyware.

The US State Department yesterday announced that it will impose visa restrictions on individuals accused of misusing commercial spyware, Reuters reports. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a press statement, "The United States remains concerned with the growing misuse of commercial spyware around the world to facilitate repression, restrict the free flow of information, and enable human rights abuses. The misuse of commercial spyware threatens privacy and freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association."

The policy will apply to "(1) individuals believed to have been involved in the misuse of commercial spyware, to target, arbitrarily or unlawfully surveil, harass, suppress, or intimidate individuals including journalists, activists, other persons perceived to be dissidents for their work, members of marginalized communities or vulnerable populations, or the family members of these targeted individuals; (2) individuals believed to facilitate or derive financial benefit from the misuse of commercial spyware described in prong (1) above, including but not limited to developing, directing, or operationally controlling companies that furnish technologies such as commercial spyware to governments, or those acting on behalf of governments, that engage in activities as described in prong (1) above; and (3) the immediate family members of individuals subject to the restrictions in prongs (1) and (2) above. For purposes of this policy, “immediate family members” include spouses and children of any age."

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International conference seeks to address commercial spyware abuse.

The UK and France are hosting a diplomatic conference this week to sign an international agreement regarding the proliferation of commercial spyware tools, the Record reports. Thirty-five nations will attend the conference, along with "big tech leaders, legal experts, and human rights defenders," and "vendors involved in developing and selling cyber intrusion tools and services." The Record notes that the Israeli government is notably absent from the conference, despite that country's sizable share of the commercial spyware market.

Conference attendees will sign the Pall Mall Process, a new international initiative that will commit participants "to taking joint-action on the issue, including meeting again in Paris in 2025."

The UK's Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said in his opening speech, "Our joint efforts should focus on ensuring that states and industry alike act responsibly in cyberspace ensuring our robust existing framework of international law and norms are equally applied in the virtual realm. For governments, we can make a difference, through effective regulation, proper export controls, and working with the market responsibly as a customer and end user to develop better safeguards and oversight. Our partners in industry also have a role to play: Software providers keeping their products patched, identifying flaws, and working with partners on collective security. And the legitimate vendors of these capabilities ensuring they have responsible supply chains. They all have a responsibility to vet and limit their customers and to exercise caution when considering their use."

Representatives from Google were present at the conference, and the company's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) published a report today looking at the commercial surveillance industry. The report notes that commercial spyware vendors "are behind half of known 0-day exploits targeting Google products as well as Android ecosystem devices."

Netherlands calls out Chinese state-sponsored hacking campaign.

Dutch intelligence agencies have disclosed that Chinese state-sponsored hackers gained access to a computer network used by the Dutch Ministry of Defence last year, Reuters reports. The malware targeted FortiGate devices on a network used for unclassified research and development. Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren stated, "For the first time, the MIVD has chosen to make public a technical report on the working methods of Chinese hackers. It is important to attribute such espionage activities by China. In this way we increase international resilience against this type of cyber espionage."

Notes.

Today's issue includes events affecting France, Israel the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Attacks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities

Hackers steal data of 2 million in SQL injection, XSS attacks (BleepingComputer) A threat group named 'ResumeLooters' has stolen the personal data of over two million job seekers after compromising 65 legitimate job listing and retail sites using SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

Verizon insider data breach hits over 63,000 employees (BleepingComputer) Verizon Communications is warning that an insider data breach impacts almost half its workforce, exposing sensitive employee information.

Municipalities in US, Spain dealing with outages from cyberattacks (The Record) Tennessee's Germantown announced a ransomware attack Friday that impacted internal on-site servers, while two Spanish towns have also been grappling with cyberattacks in recent days.

Chinese spies hacked Dutch defence network last year - intelligence agencies (Reuters) Chinese state-backed cyber spies gained access to a Dutch military network last year, Dutch intelligence agencies said on Tuesday, calling it part of a trend of Chinese political espionage against the Netherlands and its allies.

Security Patches, Mitigations, and Software Updates

Multiple Zero-Day Vulnerabilities in Hitron Systems Security Camera DVRs (NHS Digital) Actively exploited vulnerabilities could allow an authenticated attacker to achieve operating system command injection on affected Hitron System DVRs

Barracuda Disclosed Critical Vulnerabilities in WAF, Affecting File Upload and JSON Protection - SOCRadar Cyber Intelligence Inc. (SOCRadar Cyber Intelligence Inc.) Barracuda WAF is a security solution for safeguarding web applications against diverse threats and attacks. Available as a cloud-delivered...

Canon Patches 7 Critical Vulnerabilities in Small Office Printers (SecurityWeek) Canon announces patches for seven critical-severity remote code execution flaws impacting small office printer models.

Legislation, Policy, and Regulation

Critical infrastructure cyber law needed ‘more than ever,’ Parliament told (IT World Canada) The Canadian government's proposed law forcing critical infrastructure providers to toughen their cybersecurity is "needed now more than ever," an expert told a parliamentary committee on Monday. "We are far behind our allies" in protecting critical infrastructure firms, David Shipley, CEO of New Brunswick's Beauceron Security and co-chair of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's cyber

Britain and France assemble diplomats for international agreement on spyware () The two countries are to jointly host the conference at Lancaster House in London this week to launch a new international agreement addressing “the proliferation of commercial cyber intrusion tools.”

Israeli government absent from London spyware conference and pledge (The Record) Officials from the Israeli government are not attending a conference in London this week focused on tackling the abuses of spyware, despite the country’s significant share of the export market, according to a list of attendees seen by Recorded Future News.

Industry Events

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

Events

SANS Tysons Corner – NOVA 2024 (Tysons Corner, Virginia, USA, Feb 5 - 10, 2024) At SANS Tysons Corner-NOVA 2024, choose from 41 interactive courses with hands-on labs. Practice your skills and compete against your peers during NetWars Tournaments, and network with your instructor and industry colleagues in real-time. Each course includes electronic and printed books, and several courses align with GIAC certifications!

SANS San Diego 2024 (San Diego (and virtual), California, USA, Feb 12 - 17, 2024) At SANS San Diego 2024, choose from 41 interactive courses with hands-on labs. Practice your skills and compete against your peers during NetWars Tournaments, and network with your instructor and industry colleagues in real-time. Each course includes electronic and printed books, and several courses align with GIAC certifications!

SANS Security East New Orleans 2024 (New Orleans, and virtual, Louisiana, USA, Feb 19 - 24, 2024) At SANS Security East New Orleans 2024, choose from 41 interactive courses with hands-on labs. Practice your skills and compete against your peers during NetWars Tournaments, and network with your instructor and industry colleagues in real-time. Each course includes electronic and printed books, and several courses align with GIAC certifications!

Spring 2024 CISSP Study Group presented by ISSA Central MD (Columbia, or virtual, Maryland, USA, Feb 20 - May 1, 2024) Our Study Group fosters a learning environment to better absorb and understand the material. This is much better than the alternative of cram it in and regurgitate it on a test immediately following. Our approach simply makes the information more useful and easier to interpret! You can attend each session in-person in Columbia, MD, or attend virtually on line.

Trellix Public Sector Cybersecurity Summit (Washington, DC, USA, Feb 27, 2024) Public sector organizations continue to face a constant barrage of sophisticated cyber threats. And with new cybersecurity mandates and guidance — from recent executive orders to the release of the 2023 National Cyber Strategy — public sector leaders must make considerable decisions about their cyber enterprise that will have lasting impacts for years to come. On top of this, the emergence of novel security capabilities built on machine learning, AI, predictive analytics and extended detection and response has given security leaders a new arsenal of tools to defend against the next sophisticated attack. Join top technology leaders from across the public sector at the Trellix Public Sector Cybersecurity Summit as they discuss emerging topics in cybersecurity like ransomware, zero trust, global security and XDR. Throughout the summit, you’ll have the opportunity to engage in conversations about how the arrival of AI will intersect with public sector cybersecurity, evolving partnerships to strengthen threat intelligence, how to navigate, take action on and go beyond new cybersecurity policy directives, and much more.

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Daily Briefing for 02.06.24