The CyberWire Daily Briefing for 1.6.2014

Summary

By The CyberWire Staff

T-Mobile is reportedly preparing to warn subscribers of a significant data compromise originating in a third-party supplier's network.

Another Java exploit strikes, this time in Yahoo!'s advertising servers.

SnapChat continues to repair the damage done by mishandled telephone numbers, and prepares various security upgrades. Observers see the episode as a case of a familiar tendency in start-ups: prioritizing growth over security.

The OpenSSL defacement turns out not to have been a hypervisor hack after all. Skype confirms that the Syrian Electronic Army's webpage defacements did not involve any data compromise; Microsoft tweets advice on recognizing phishing.

China's online payment platform Alipay is notifying customers (and apologizing to them) over a three-year-old data breach.

Online gaming continues to suffer security issues. Steam and Origin suffered denial-of-service attacks last week, and a breach at the World Poker Tour Amateur Poker League compromised player data (many players had US Government e-mail addresses). (The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime notes that online gaming and micropayment platforms are increasingly favored by cyber-criminals laundering money.)

Bruce Schneier, formerly of BT, now CTO of Co3 Systems, cautions that the Internet of Things is "wildly insecure, and often upatchable."

FireEye's acquisition of Mandiant caused the buyer's share price to pop last week. Forbes sees the enhanced company as combining cloud– and SaaS–based security with incident response.

The US Congress seems unlikely to enact intelligence legislation soon, but the President is preparing to announce various reforms, including a "public advocate" position in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Notes.

Today's issue includes events affecting Australia, China, France, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Nigeria, Russia, Slovenia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Nations, and United States..

Industry Events

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

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.

Security Analyst Summit 2014 (Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, Feb 9 - 13, 2014) The Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit (SAS) is an annual event connecting anti-malware researchers and developers, global law enforcement agencies and CERTs and members of the security research community. The goal is to learn, debate, share and showcase cutting-edge research, new technologies and discuss ways to improve collaboration in the fight against cyber-crime.

The Insider Threat: Protecting Data and Managing Risk (Online, Feb 11, 2014) As recent events have demonstrated, the threats from inside government have the potential to be more harmful than the hacking activities of our enemies. Protecting sensitive government information from unauthorized disclosures by insiders, whether intentional or due to negligence, is becoming a huge priority across the board. No matter how sophisticated your training program is, some employees will intentionally or unintentionally commit the negligent discharge of classified information.

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