Germany's domestic security agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutzn (BfV), noting extensive Russian and Chinese cyber espionage, warned against the real possibility of sleeper malware, destructive code installed in advance of its intended use.
The Hakai botnet has moved beyond its initial Huawei targets and now infests D-Link and Realtek routers. The botnet's growing, but the botmaster's doing less crowing, the recent arrest of rival Satori's alleged botmaster having evidently put the fear of the law into him.
SamSam ransomware spreads largely unabated as victims continue to swallow its phishbait.
US Director of National Intelligence Coats yesterday said that the prospect of foreign interference with US elections remained real and troubling. Facebook's recently departed security chief Alex Stamos was more direct: the US elections risk becoming "the World Cup of information warfare."
The US Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence is grilling Facebook COO Sandberg and Twitter CEO Dorsey about foreign influence, censorship, cooperation with repressive regimes, and other matters. It's clear that Facebook is concentrating on culling inauthentic accounts and providing rumor control of disinformation. Twitter's plans seem similar, but somewhat less clear. Google was invited but is conspicuously absent. Twitter will appear later before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Google has committed to clearing malicious apps from its Play Store, and to keeping trolls from buying ads, but reports suggest it's met with indifferent success. Researchers recently succeeded in buying ads while posing as a famous St. Petersburg troll farm, even copying some of that farm's notorious content.