Researchers at Silent Signal report a relatively easy upgrade of the Shadow Brokers' leaked Extrabacon exploit that renders it effective against newer versions of Cisco ASA. Others have found the exploits relatively easy to use—a honeypot set up by a researcher at New York University noticed the same sorts of probes Cisco honeypots have seen. US DNI Clapper says investigation continues, but that the Intelligence Community still lacks a good understanding of the incident. Bruce Schneier cites the incident as further evidence of poor US Government disclosure policy. (He also thinks it's "not Snowden stuff," but the work of an outsider.)
That outsider is widely believed, of course, to be the Russian intelligence services, and observers think the leaking reflects a "new normal" in which cyberattacks directly serve the goals of information operations. In recent cases those goals apparently center on discrediting the US political system as irredeemably corrupt. Analysts predict direct election hacking in November. Wikileaks' Assange promises to release, soon, more discreditable information about Democratic Presidential candidate Clinton.
Terrorist attacks have led German policymakers to rethink the national commitment to privacy. French policymakers are on board with this as well, both countries looking for laws that would enable security services to break encryption at need. In the UK, Members of Parliament take social media companies to task for enabling extremism.
A backdoor banking Trojan is found to receive its command-and-control via Twitter.
Ransomware hits an Indian pharmaceutical company, and Bkav warns of ransomware-bearing emails circulating in Vietnam.