Symantec researchers report a previously undocumented threat actor, "Tortoiseshell," conducting what appears to be an espionage sweep through the IT supply chain. Tortoiseshell is unusual in that its tools are for the most part custom-built. They have found the Poison Frog variant of the Bondupdater backdoor used by OilRig (a.k.a. HelixKitten), but this doesn't offer much help in attribution: those tools had been leaked to the world in April.

The Simjacker vulnerability AdaptiveMobile described last week may prove more difficult to exploit had been thought. A number of researchers tell Computing that the vulnerability lies in a legacy feature of SIMs that most mobile carriers no longer use.

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki describes the arrest of Cameron Ortis under the Information Security Act as "unsettling," and points to a joint investigation with the FBI as suggesting that the Mounties had a rogue insider, City News reports. Other than asking people not to judge the RCMP as a whole on the basis of Mr. Ortis's alleged misconduct, she had little to add to the story.

As Edward Snowden continues his book tour, the US Department of Justice has filed a civil lawsuit against the author and sometime NSA contractor. Justice isn't interested in stopping publication of the book, or in altering its contents. Instead, the Government wants whatever money Mr. Snowden makes on sales of Permanent Record. The principle is that someone shouldn't be able to profit from violating a proper non-disclosure agreement like the one Mr. Snowden had with NSA.