Cybersecurity & Espionage Articles
Original Post at Yahoo News
The hackers demanded €1,500, about $1,600, paid via Bitcoin. The hotel decided to pay. "We had no other choice,” said managing director Christoph Brandstaetter. “Neither police nor insurance help you in this case.”
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Original Post at Daily Beast
Russian media on Thursday reported the arrest of yet another security service officer accused of being a U.S. spy in a treason case thought to be tied to the U.S. hacking scandal. After news broke on Wednesday of the arrest of Sergei Mikhailov, the agency’s top cyber expert, two other FSB officers were reported under arrest for the same charge on Thursday – meaning either the U.S. had a ring of infiltrators deep inside Russian security services, or Russia has a trick up its sleeve. Mikhailov, who was reportedly dragged out with a sack over his head from a meeting with his FSB colleagues, has now been identified by pro-Kremlin media as a member of the famous hacking collective Anonymous International, known for targeting high-ranking Russian officials. The group, known as Shaltai Boltai in Russian, has been accused of being a front for the CIA in the past after leaking compromising emails sent by Kremlin officials. On Thursday, Russia’s Rambler News Service identified another FSB employee accused of treason, Dmitry Dokuchayev, who was reportedly arrested in December. Friends said they had not heard from him since then. On Wednesday, Kaspersky Lab said that the head of its investigations unit was also arrested in December on charges of treason. The arrests coincide with the release of intelligence reports in the U.S. which concluded that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential campaign. The unclassified report released by intelligence chiefs in late December was widely panned as making a weak case, yet with the arrests of FSB cyber experts in Moscow, some are questioning if the U.S. was simply protecting its sources. Original Post at Softpedia.com
The United States was the main target of hacker attacks last year, resulting in a record number of data breaches. According to a report from Risk Based Security, during 2016 there were 4,149 data breaches which resulted in the exposure of 4.2 billion records. Nearly half, or more specifically 47.5%, of the breaches that exposed user data came from the United States. Also, 68.2% of breached records belonged to US citizens. This does not mean, of course, that this is something that only happens in the United States. It means, on the other hand, that in many regions of the world, such vulnerabilities are not as visible and data breaches aren’t reported as such because they aren’t even detected. Original Post at ZDNet.com
It seems that password security simply doesn't work. Many of us rely on simple, easy-to-remember strings of characters and letters, including strings found on your keyboard such as "1234567" or "qwertyu." While these strings are easy for you to remember, they are also no trouble at all for attackers to brute-force hacking techniques -- or little more than a guess or two -- to compromise your online accounts and take over your digital identity. Original Post at Graham Cluley Ltd
I've often said that the biggest vulnerability lies in users' brains, not in the software they're running on their computers or smartphone. It only takes one unwise decision for a security breach to take place. And that's certainly going to be the case if you're thinking with what's in your trousers rather than your brain. Original Post at TechRepublic.com
"How many email messages did you open this month? A few dozen, a few hundred? It's hard for you to know," said Paul Everton, founder of email security company MailControl. "But marketers and hackers probably know." Original Post at Telegraph.co.uk
An Italian nuclear engineer and his sister have been arrested by police on charges of conducting a massive cyber-espionage operation that hacked into the emails of two former prime ministers, Vatican cardinals and Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank. Giulio Occhionero called the "malware" or computer virus "Eye Pyramid" - an apparent reference to the all-seeing eye of God, or Eye of Providence, a symbol often associated with Freemasonry that appears on the US one dollar bill. The name of the software may also have been a play on his own surname - Occhionero means "black eye" in Italian. Original Post at ArsTechnica.com
A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy that illegally accessed the e-mail and social media accounts of Central Intelligence Director John Brennan and other senior government officials and then used that access to leak sensitive information and make personal threats. Justin Gray Liverman, 24, of Morehead City, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, commit identity theft, and make harassing, anonymous phone calls, federal prosecutors said Friday. Among the 10 people targeted in the conspiracy were Brennan; then-Deputy FBI Director Mark Giuliano; National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper; Greg Mecher, the husband of White House Communication Director Jen Psaki; and other government officials. The group called itself Crackas with Attitude, and it was led by a co-conspirator going by the name of Cracka. Original Post at TechRepublic.com
Air gapping is a technique that dates back to pre-internet computers. Effectively, an air-gapped computer stands alone, with no network connection. By isolating a computer from the internet, it is thought the data contained within the air-gapped computer is 100% safe from hacking. Understand this...when humans are involved, nothing is 100%. However, does that mean you should reconsider that air-gapped solution for uber-sensitive data? Not necessarily. Original Post at CNN Tech.com
The Lego Boost kit lets kids build five different smart toy models, including a cat, robot and guitar, with the help of sensors and motors. |
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November 2022
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