Cyber Attacks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities
Lithuania fears Russia will attempt to sway its elections (Reuters) Lithuania's intelligence agencies fear Russia will interfere in its forthco...
Cyberattaque contre Airbus: la piste chinoise avancée (Challenges) Selon des sources concordantes, étatiques et proches du constructeur aéronautique, la cyberattaque dont Airbus a annoncé, le 30 janvier, avoir été victime, a été menée via un mode opératoire utilisé par un groupe de hackers qui opère depuis la Chine et ciblait des documents techniques relatifs à la certification des avions du géant européen.
Chinese hackers behind cyber attack on aircraft manufacturer Airbus (Talk Finance) A group of hackers from China would be responsible for a cyber attack on the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus, reports the French business magazine Challenges on the basis of anonymous initiates. Airbus announced on 30 January that it had become a victim of a cyber attack in which data was stolen. Exactly what the damage is, was still being investigated …
APT10 Targeted Norwegian MSP and US Companies in Sustained Campaign (Recorded Future) In this report, Insikt Group shares insight into a sustained cyberespionage campaign assessed to be conducted by Chinese state-sponsored threat actor APT10.
RDP Servers Can Hack Client Devices: Researchers (SecurityWeek) Researchers discover over two dozen RDP vulnerabilities, including ones that allow a malicious RDP server to hack a device running the client RDP software.
Reverse RDP Attack: Code Execution on RDP Clients (Check Point Research) Used by thousands of IT professionals and security researchers worldwide, the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is usually considered a safe and trustworthy application to connect to remote computers. Whether it is used to help those working remotely or to work in a safe VM environment, RDP clients are an invaluable...
BEC Actors Exploit Gmail “Dot Accounts” to Scale Activity (Agari) Cybercriminals are taking advantage of a Gmail feature to scale fradulent activity, including filing fake tax returns, credit card applications, and more.
Remote Code Execution in InduSoft Web Studio (Tenable®) Enterprises running InduSoft Web Studio should update their software and ensure these critical systems are not exposed to the internet.
Orcus RAT hidden in Coca-Cola video - (Enterprise Times) Orcus RAT is using a Ramadan-themed-Coca-Cola video to infect users machines in order to steal user passwords and launch server stress tests
Code Execution Flaw Found in LibreOffice, OpenOffice (SecurityWeek) Researcher finds serious remote code execution vulnerability affecting LibreOffice and OpenOffice, but a patch has only been released for the former.
Half of IoT devices let down by vulnerable apps (Naked Security) Half of the apps used to control a range of Internet of Things devices are insecure in a variety of ways, researchers found.
Beware of the App! On the Vulnerability Surface of Smart Devices through their Companion Apps (Arxiv) Internet of Things (IoT) devices are becoming increasingly important. These devices are often resource-limited, hindering rigorous enforcement of security policies. Assessing the vulnerability of IoT devices is an important problem, but analyzing their firmware is difficult for a variety of reasons, including requiring the purchase of devices. This paper finds that analyzing companion apps to these devices for clues to security vulnerabilities can be an effective strategy.
Kids’ GPS watches are still a security ‘train wreck’ (Naked Security) Anyone could have accessed the entire database, including a child’s location, on Gator watches and other models that share its back end.
Why Fighting Card-Not-Present Fraud Remains an Ongoing Challenge (SecurityWeek) The abundance of compromised card data and other assets available online continues to hinder the fight against card-not-present (CNP) fraud.
Metro customers hit by text-targetting attack (Finextra Research) Metro Bank has fallen victim to a new type of cyber fraud that targets the codes sent via text messages used to verify transactions.
Mat-Su Borough eying $1.3 million balance after insurance payout for 2018 cyber attack (KTUU) The Mat-Su Borough Assembly is looking to appropriate $1 million of cyber insurance to begin reimbursing the borough for costs associated with a 2018 cyber security attack that took their network offline.
Scam of Oregon home buyer offers cautionary tale on the perils of wiring closing funds without verifying email (Washington Post) If you plan to wire funds, it’s best to call the title company or lender to verify transfer instructions.
Security Patches, Mitigations, and Software Updates
Google Patches Critical .PNG Image Bug (Threatpost) Eleven critical bugs will be patched as part of the February Android Security Bulletin.
Cyber Trends
Ponemon Institute Releases 2019 Study on Managing Safety, Security and Privacy in the Interconnected World of IT, OT and IIoT (GlobeNewswire News Room) Privacy and information security research firm, Ponemon Institute, announces the release of “2019 Safety, Security & Privacy in the Interconnected World of IT, OT and IIoT study” in partnership with TUV Rheinland OpenSky.
SecurityFirst and Ponemon Study Find Security Gap in Cloud Migration (PR Newswire) SecurityFirst™, provider of data-centric security, and the Ponemon Institute today released the...
When Real-Time Payments Go Wrong (Rambus) Since the 1980s, momentum behind real-time payments (RTP) – also known as faster or instant payments – has grown at an accelerated pace, because of its benefit to both consumers and businesses. Estimates currently suggest approximately 35 countries, including Switzerland, Taiwan, India, China and the UK, have implemented or …
Safety, Security & Privacy in the Interconnected World of IT, OT & IIOT (Open Sky) Insights to better manage risk and opportunities for convergence
Mobile Endgeräte als tickende Zeitbomben (IT-Zoom) „Wir sehen bereits heute, dass die Schadcode-Zahlen insbesondere für Android im Jahresvergleich um 40 Prozent gestiegen sind“, warnt Hendrik Flierman, Global Sales Director bei der G Data Software AG.
Marketplace
Early stage funding for UK startups drops 15pc to four year low (The Telegraph) Early stage investment in UK startups has hit a four year low as Brexit uncertainty prompted a drop in funding activity, according to new research.
US businesses turning to consulting firms amid cybersecurity fears (Consulting) With the rise of digitization comes an increased risk of cyberattacks, which in turn raises cybersecurity to the top of many American companies’ to-do lists.
Microsoft warns investors that its artificial-intelligence tech could go awry and hurt its reputation (Business Insider) Microsoft is spending big to build out its AI tech. But it's already had a few high-profile snafus and can't promise it won't have more in the future.
vArmour Raises $44M Amid Rising Popularity for Solutions Securing Cloud Computing, Hybrid Deployments and Other Transformative Computing Models (vArmour) vArmour is the industry’s first distributed security system that provides application-aware microsegmentation. vArmour microsegments each application by wrapping protection around every workload - increasing visibility, security, and operational efficiency.
Signal Sciences Raises $35M to Accelerate Wide-Scale Market Expansion and Technology Innovation (BusinessWire) Signal Sciences, the fastest growing web application security company in the world, today announced that it has raised $35 million in Series C funding
CrowdStrike Moves to Create Cybersecurity Ecosystem (Security Boulevard) CrowdStrike announced it is opening its Falcon cloud-based platform for providing endpoint security to developers of complementary third-party applications.
This Government Contractor Is Betting Big on Electronic Warfare (The Motley Fool) As consolidation surges among IT services providers, CACI International is hoping specialization will help it compete.
Avast sells Managed Workplace product to Barracuda Networks (Telecompaper) Avast announced that it has sold its Managed Workplace product, a remote monitoring and management product for managed service providers, to Barracuda Networks. The company said the business is not core to its SMB strategy, which focuses on securing the workplace.
Industrial Cybersecurity Concerns Translate into Record Growth for PAS Global (PR Newswire) PAS Global, LLC, the leading solution provider of industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity, process safety, and...
I won't bother hunting and reporting more Sony zero-days, because all I'd get is a lousy t-shirt (Register) It's 2019. Should billion-dollar corps do better than offer swag for vulns?
Arlo CIO Tejas Shah Joins Bugcrowd Advisory Board (Bugcrowd) Bugcrowd, the #1 crowdsourced security company, today announced the addition of Tejas Shah, the chief information officer of Arlo, to its advisory board.
Garrison Hires Security Veteran, Colin McKinty, PhD, to Lead US Operations (Finger Lakes Times) Garrison, the specialist provider of ultra-secure web browsing technology, today announced the hiring of cybersecurity veteran Colin McKinty, PhD as General Manager of North America.
Foresite Announces New Senior Vice President of Sales (PRWeb) Mr. Koehnecke is responsible for the strategic oversight of the company’s domestic and international market expansion and orchestration of the sales
Cybersecurity Startup CyberInt Appoints New CEO (CTECH) Itai Margalit, previously CEO of Switzerland-based network optimization company Starhome Mach, will serve as the CyberInt’s new CEO, the company announced Monday
Industry Veteran Alan Cohen Joins Silverfort As Strategic Advisor (Global Banking & Finance Review) Silverfort, the provider of next-generation authentication solutions, today announced that Alan Cohen has joined as a strategic advisor. A former senior ex
Products, Services, and Solutions
Mocana Introduces Device Security Solutions to Protect the Electric Grid (Mocana) Mocana announced the availability of solutions to protect and manage the security of legacy devices and industrial equipment. Mocana provides strong device-based authentication and encryption solutions for protecting legacy brownfield devices.
Bank streamlines discovery of sensitive data and rebuilds its Active Directory in three weeks instead of six months (Netwrix) With Netwrix Auditor, First National Bank Minnesota enabled discovery and classification of sensitive data and improved its security posture.
Enveil Partners with Thales to Expand Protections for Sensitive Data (GlobeNewswire News Room) Technology Integration Ensures Security for Critical Assets Without Disrupting Existing Security Infrastructure
Ivanti Patch for Windows Achieves U.S. Army Certificate of Networthiness (CoN) | Ivanti (Ivanti) Army CoN Certification Validates that Ivanti Patch for Windows Meets Strict U.S. Army and Department of Defense (DoD) Standards for Security, Compatibility and Sustainability
Launching the CrowdStrike Store to Bring Trusted Third-Party Apps to the Falcon Platform (CrowdStrike) The CrowdStrike Store offers trusted third-party applications and add-ons that enhance and extend the industry-leading Falcon platform — CrowdStrike customers can discover, try and buy new security tools without having to deploy additional agents, on-premises servers or use new cloud platforms.
Google Password Checkup Checks For Already Compromised Passwords (Decipher) Google’s Password Checkup Chrome extension tackles the big problem of password reuse by checking what passwords users are using against a database of compromised credentials.
Filling Cybersecurity Blind Spots with Unsupervised Learning (Datanami) What you don't know can hurt you. And when you're processing millions of transactions per day, what you don't know probably is hurting you. That's why
Technologies, Techniques, and Standards
NSA Offers Guide on Speculative Execution Side-Channel Attacks (Redmondmag) The U.S. National Security Agency issued updated guidance late last month on the various speculative execution side-channel flaws that open up all systems using modern processors to potential attacks.
Why 5G is a big deal for militaries throughout the world (C4ISRNET) New 5G technology will mean battlefield devices will have the power to take advantage of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and cryptography and facial recognition.
3 ways the Pentagon could improve cyber intelligence (Fifth Domain) Intelligence officials and academics say the United States needs to expand its cyber surveillance authorities and capabilities to meet the Trump administration’s vision to be more aggressive in cyberspace.
Five things you can do right now to stay safer online (Google) According to new research from Harris Poll and Google, most people think they’re secure online. But are they doing everything they can?
How to Submit a Bug Report to Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and More (Lifehacker) Leaky security, hardware exploits, crashes, broken features—every piece of hardware or software is prone to bugs and vulnerabilities, and it’s likely you’ve had the misfortune of dealing with them at some point in your tech life. While most people grin, bear it, and wait for the problem to fix itself, you can also take a more active approach to bugs and other security disasters by reporting your findings.
CVE-2018–8414: A Case Study in Responsible Disclosure by Matt Nelson (Hakin9 - IT Security Magazine) The process of vulnerability disclosure can be riddled with frustrations, concerns about ethics, and communication failure. I have had tons of bugs go well. I have had tons of bugs go poorly.
5 reasons why asset management is a hot topic in 2019 (Help Net Security) Understanding asset management enables companies to embrace digital transformation and validate whether assets, users, and devices should be granted access.
Navy Cyber Defenders Participate in Boss of the Security Operations Center Competition (DVIDS) Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command (NCDOC) and Naval Network Warfare Command (NETWARCOM) participated in Boss of the Security Operations Center competition (BOTS), hosted by Splunk Inc., January 24.
When Delete’s Not Good Enough: Navy to Burn 2 Tons of Digital Storage (Defense One) Researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center have a lot of classified information stored on digital devices and issued a solicitation to literally watch it all burn.
How the Air Force made a dent in its 79,000 security clearance backlog (Federal News Network) The Air Force is using multiple programs to push back its security clearance backlog.
Design and Innovation
RSA Conference Announces Finalists for Innovation Sandbox Contest 2019 (BusinessWire) RSA® Conference, the world’s leading information security conferences and expositions, today announces the 10 finalists for its annual RSAC Innovation
Bots are cheap and effective. One startup trolls them into going away (TechCrunch) Bots are ruining the internet. When they’re not pummeling a website with usernames and passwords from a long list of stolen credentials, they’re scraping the price of hotels or train tickets and odds from betting sites to get the best data. Or, they’re just trying to knock a websi…
How Facebook Has Changed Computing (WIRED) To handle its massive amount of data, Facebook built new hardware and software tools, and shared them through open source.
‘The Social Network’ Was More Right Than Anyone Realized (WIRED) Director David Fincher's movie is not necessarily historically accurate, but its lessons about privacy and power still ring true nearly 10 years later.
Research and Development
Quantum Repeater Trial Ignites Hopes for Long-Distance Quantum Cryptography and Computation (IEEE Spectrum) New technology teases simple, photon-only alternative to existing high-maintenance quantum repeater technologies
Academia
Palo Alto Networks to launch cyber security academy for BC high school students (IT Business) Today is Safer Internet Day around the world, and to honour the occasion Santa Clara-based cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks has announced
Legislation, Policy, and Regulation
Czech cyber chief expects Huawei, ZTE to be excluded from more tenders (ABS-CBN News) Huawei and ZTE will be left out of more state tenders after the tax authority excluded them, the head of the Czech cyber watchdog, which issued a recent security warning about the Chinese technology firms, said on Tuesday.
Is an Iron Curtain Falling Across Tech? (Foreign Policy) The conflict around Huawei may be the first shots in a new cold war.
Analysis | The Cybersecurity 202: What Trump didn't say about the state of the union's cybersecurity (Washington Post) There wasn't a single mention of threats to elections or critical infrastructure.
U.S. warns European allies not to use Chinese gear for 5G networks (Reuters) The United States sees the European Union as its top priority in a global effort...
US tells European allies: don’t buy ‘untrusted’ Chinese gear for 5G networks (South China Morning Post) The US has launched a lobbying campaign in European capitals, branding Huawei’s equipment a security risk
Hill Bill Backstopping ZTE Deal Reintroduced (Multichannel) Would reimpose ban on U.S. tech exports if Commerce can't certify compliance with conditions
US Hacker Squads Constantly On the Attack in New Cyberwar Strategy (RealClearLife) All day every day American hackers are breaking into foreign networks to slug it out with adversaries on their own turf courtesy of U.S. Cyber Command.
Report urges government, private firms collaborate to prevent fallout from major cyberattack (TheHill) A report published by a think tank Tuesday is urging priva
Tabletop exercise of cyber-enabled economic warfare reinforces need for more preparation by U.S. Government, private sector, new report from FDD and the Chertoff Group finds (Chertoff Group) The results of a tabletop exercise on cyber-enabled economic warfare find that when a large-scale destructive cyberattack occurs, the United States and the private sector must already have in place the resources and methods to share information in order to mitigate the attack and recover from it quickly, according to a joint report issued today by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and The Chertoff Group.
Former Official: Throwing More Bodies Into Cybersecurity Won’t Help (Nextgov) In fact, the focus on the cybersecurity workforce gap is leading to more insecurity and the need for more workforce, says a former FBI and intelligence official.
Australian government clamping down on security research, academic says (Computerworld) Prominent cyber security researcher Dr Vanessa Teague says that Australian cryptography research is under threat from a decision by the Defence Export Controls office to alter an agreement with the University of Melbourne.
Poland unveils details of plan for new cyber defence force (Polskie Radio dla Zagranicy) Poland’s defence minister on Tuesday divulged details of a plan to create a new cyber defence force for the country to counter hi-tech security threats.
Social media giants put profits before child safety (Times) Social media executives could be arrested and held personally liable if content that is harmful to children or vulnerable people is not taken down from their sites, a minister has suggested. Jackie...
Senate gives initial OK to anti-cyberbullying expansion (Daily Record) Senate gives preliminary approval to a bill that would expand Maryland’s law against cyberbullying of youngsters.
Litigation, Investigation, and Law Enforcement
Feds: No Evidence Foreign Meddling Impacted Midterms (US News & World Report) Foreign governments did not breach voting systems used in the 2018 congressional elections, federal officials say.
Report finds no significant interference in midterm elections (Fifth Domain) The new report is significant because security of the midterm elections was one metric that could be used to judge the success of the Trump administration’s plan to become more aggressive in cyberspace,
NSA Surveillance Program Challenge Dismissed Again (2) (Bloomberg Law) A Pittsburgh-area lawyer’s challenge to the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance program has again been tossed out of federal court.
Home DNA kit company says it’s working with the FBI (Naked Security) FamilyTreeDNA has disclosed that it’s opened up more than 1m DNA profiles to the FBI to help find suspects of violent crime.
Google now pays more money in EU fines than it pays in taxes (Computing) Google files 2018 revenues revealing that it pays $900m more in fines than it pays in taxes
South African electricity utility Eskom accused of ignoring customer credit card compromise (Computing) Names, addresses, energy usage and even full credit card data exposed online by South Africa's monopoly electricity company
Crypto exchange in limbo after founder dies with password (Naked Security) The only person who knew the password is dead, leaving customers unable to access around $190million in fiat and virtual currency.
