The CyberWire Daily Briefing for 12.23.2013
In support of street protests, Anonymous initiates denial-of-service campaign against Cambodian government sites.
Wired describes the weaponization of Facebook in Syria's civil war.
Over the weekend Reuters reported that NSA paid RSA $10M to embed a random-number generator known to be flawed into BSAFE encryption libraries. RSA categorically denies the allegation.
The recent Target data breach seems to have been organized by cyber criminals based outside the US. The retailer is offering various compensatory incentives in its efforts to limit damage to its brand. Some observers see the breach as an important benchmark in the evolution of PCI standards and safeguards. Other observers see it as an object lesson: "everybody's hackable." Non-US card data appear to be fetching a premium on the cyber black market.
CryptoLocker (which ZDNet breathlessly calls "unstoppable") has now claimed some 250,000 victims worldwide. The average payout is $300; the take is said to be laundered in Bitcoins.
Android users should not let themselves be panicked by "Tapsnake" scareware.
New OpenX and VMWare security advisories are out: users take notice.
A progress report on the Truecrypt public audit appears.
IBM, looking toward cloud security applications, takes a patent out on homomorphic encryption.
Observers and policymakers continue to digest the Presidential intelligence panel's report. It's receiving a generally positive reception, but critics continue to find it too surveillance-friendly. (One unwanted NSA fan: Vladimir Putin says he wishes he could operate with comparable lack of restraint.)
The US Administration seeks to halt a court ruling on warrantless surveillance.
Notes.
Today's issue includes events affecting Cambodia, Estonia, France, Israel, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States..
For a complete running list of events, please visit the Event Tracker.
Upcoming Events
FloCon 2014 (, Jan 1, 1970) FloCon 2014, a network security conference, takes place at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 13–16, 2014. This open conference provides a forum for operational network analysts, tool developers, researchers, and other parties interested in the analysis of large volumes of traffic to showcase the next generation of flow-based analysis techniques.
NASA Langley Cyber Expo (Hampton, Virginia, USA, Jan 14, 2014) The 2013 NASA Langley Cyber Expo is an annual event dedicated to Cyber Security and Information Technology at this secure facility. As the Cyber Expo hosts, the Office of the Chief Information Officer will be recruiting top federal speakers to provide informational sessions on relevant Cyber issues. Industry exhibitors may sit in on the sessions.This event will be promoted to all NASA Cyber and IT-focused personnel, as well as the entire workforce at this location.
cybergamut Tech Tuesday: Malware Reverse Engineering: An Introduction to the Tools, Workflows, and Tricks of the Trade to Attack Sophisticated Malware (, Jan 1, 1970) Reverse engineering malware can be an integral part of every security team's calculus. This session provides a technical review of the tools, workflows, and advanced analytic insight a senior reverse engineer brings to the fight. It will help demystify the process and illustrate the value-proposition associated with deep analytics of malware. Moreover, understanding the detail available through reverse engineering gives the security professional deeper insight into the tactics and techniques the attackers use to circumvent their defensive solutions. The session empowers cyber security professionals at every level to make better-informed judgments on how to improve their response and remediation protocols.
Cybertech: Cyber Security Conference and Exhibition (, Jan 1, 1970) Cybertech Israel, the first event of its kind, will present world-leading companies in the field of cyber defense alongside young companies that offer unique solutions to advance the discipline of cyber security. The conference will focus on commercial problem-solving strategies and solutions for cyber infrastructure experts across multiple sectors: energy, utilities, finance, defense, R&D, manufacturing, service sectors, health, government, telecommunications, transportation and more.
U.S. Census Data Protection & Privacy Day (, Jan 1, 1970) The Census Bureau's Privacy Compliance Branch of the Policy Coordination Office is hosting a Data Protection and Privacy Day on January 28. This event is intended to provide a forum for Census employees and contractors to discuss current data protection and privacy policy and to generate ideas to help evolve the current policies. The event will feature various participants from the U.S. Census Bureau as well as other government agencies and industry.
2014 Cybersecurity Innovation Forum (Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Jan 28 - 30, 2014) The 2014 Cybersecurity Innovation Forum (CIF) is a three-day event, sponsored by the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) with DHS, NIST, and NSA as primary participating organizations. The CIF will cover the existing threat landscape and provide presentations and keynotes on current and emerging practices, technologies and standards. The 2014 CIF will provide action-oriented outputs to fuel voluntary principle-driven consensus-based standards efforts, create opportunities for industry growth and drive research activities, and define use cases for subsequent exploration, which in turn will feed back into the subsequent CIF's, continually evolving the state of the art.