NBC's website was hacked yesterday, serving visitors a helping of Citadel banking malware, but the infection was quickly detected and removed. Contaminated urls appear to be eclipsing botnets as the most common vehicles for cyber attacks. The waterholing attack Apple sustained offers another recent example.
Official Kyrgyz sites are defaced with the message (in Russian) "We are against racism." The attacks are thought related to Kyrgyz/Uzbek tensions.
China and the US continue to swap accusations of cyber provocation, and Chinese protestations of innocence remain unconvincing: circumstantial evidence can after all be solid, and to argue that professional soldiers would be too professional to misbehave in social media is a fantasy out of a 1990 techno-thriller. Australian media raise the alarm over their country's vulnerability to similar attacks—recall that Australia has been caught in the middle of a Sino-American dispute before, most recently during Congressional investigation of Huawei. Speaking of Huawei, the Chinese company says it welcomes the US Administration's new strictures on security: they're committed to doing good business in international markets.
CSO interviews Triumfant on "advanced volatile threats," but not all are convinced these represent something new, being perhaps better thought of as advanced persistent threats with sophisticated obfuscation.
US acquisition officials are now authorized to discuss the effects of budget sequestration with business as agencies plan to conserve cash by delaying contractor payment. Even under looming Federal austerity, Maryland increases cyber jobs.
Pennsylvania State University opens an intelligence-training red cell.