The CyberWire Daily Briefing for 12.24.2013

Summary

By The CyberWire Staff

News on Christmas Eve remains focused on two stories: the Target payment card breach, and Reuters' allegation of RSA collusion with NSA to weaken encryption.

Both Target and the banks that issue the affected payment cards are working to contain the damage to consumers' accounts (and their brands' reputations). While PR experts generally give Target's communication with customers high marks, class-action litigation has already begun, and five US states' attorneys general have requested information on the incident. (Indeed, Target has invited all states' attorneys general to a conference call with its corporate counsel.) The US Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation of the theft. Financial analysts predict the cost of issuing replacement cards will be high.

Two interesting tactical notes emerge from the breach. First, "decoupled debit cards" like Target's own Red Card have turned out to be less interesting to the criminals, and therefore now seem to have a security upside. Such decoupled cards (which draw funds from a separate issuer) had hitherto generally been regarded primarily as low–end bankcard alternatives.

Second, stolen cards are being marketed with the location of the stores where they were used, enabling local (and thus less obviously fraudulent) criminal exploitation.

RSA categorically denies having been paid by NSA to use a knowingly weakened encryption algorithm, but many critics claim that the algorithm in question had been suspect for years. (How much of such criticism depends on hindsight remains unclear.)

Reports claim the Japanese government wants US help developing offensive cyber capabilities.

Notes.

Today's issue includes events affecting Belgium, China, Finland, Japan, Republic of Korea, NATO, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States..

The CyberWire will not publish tomorrow: its editors are taking Christmas off. We'll resume regular publication on December 26. Enjoy the holidays.

Industry Events

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Upcoming Events

FloCon2014 (Charleston, South Carolina, USA, Jan 13 - 16, 2014) 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 (Columbia, Maryland, USA, Jan 21, 2014) 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.

CANCELLED DUE TO WINTER STORMS: cybergamut Tech Tuesday: Malware Reverse Engineering — An Introduction to the Tools, Workflows, and Tricks of the Trade to Attack Sophisticated Malware (Columbia, Maryland, USA, Jan 21, 2014) This talk has been cancelled. Please consult cybergamut for scheduling updates.

Cybertech — Cyber Security Conference and Exhibition (Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan 27 - 29, 2014) 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 (Suitland, Maryland, USA, Jan 28, 2014) 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.

Cyber Training Forum at NGA (Springfield, Virginia, USA, Feb 4, 2014) The 2014 Cyber Security Training Forum (CSTF) will take place at the NGA East Campus in Springfield, VA. This event is designed to provide education and training to the NGA Workforce, the Intelligence Community, and Industry. The CSTF will include keynotes, breakout sessions, and cyber security demonstrations from industry.

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