The CyberWire Daily Briefing for 1.7.2014
CryptoLocker continues to wreak damage as it strikes a New Hampshire town hall, effectively wiping out eight years of files. Unfortunately it's not the only ransomware kit out there, and it may not be the worst: two competitors, PrisonLocker and PowerLocker, have been observed in criminal markets, and others are thought to be under development.
Follow-up phishing is underway in two recent pay card breaches, JP Morgan Chase and Target.
Last week's denial-of-service attacks on online gaming services didn't involve data theft, but a new World-of-Warcraft attack does: a Trojanized Curse client steals player login credentials.
Webroot sees a spike in Zeus vectors spoofing Bitdefender anti-virus software.
Guccifer returns with more celebrity hacks. Romanian intelligence services say they'll get him.
Yahoo reports it's removed the malware from its ad servers. While the infection lasted, it reportedly infected 27k users per hour, mostly in Europe, and mostly via PCs.
Citing regional governments' (particularly Iran's) heavy use of covert cyber operations, the Center for Strategic and International Studies publishes a report identifying the Arabian Gulf as a major flashpoint for cyber conflict.
Cyber mergers and acquisitions continue, although none as big as FireEye's acquisition of Mandiant last week. Blue Coat has bought Norman Shark, and Palo Alto Networks has picked up Morta Security. Analysts see the latter as a riposte to FireEye. VUPEN lists a number of zero-days for sale (and helpfully notes where they fit into the Wassenaar export control regime).
The US FAA's aviation safety data-sharing program needs better anonymous sharing.
Notes.
Today's issue includes events affecting Bahrain, Canada, China, France, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States..
For a complete running list of events, please visit the Event Tracker.
Upcoming Events
Federal Mobile Computing Summit (, Jan 1, 1970) The Federal Mobile Computing Summit: Digital Government Strategy II will feature government leaders who played an instrumental role in the development of the DGS and worked on the resulting deliverables. These IT thought leaders will examine the mobile landscape over the next 18 months — and beyond.
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.
Federal Intel Summit (, Jan 1, 1970) The Potomac Officers Club is proud to host the 2014 Federal Intel Summit featuring Congressman Mike Rogers and leadership from across the Federal Agencies focused on protecting our national interests.
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 (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.