Everyone is writing about an interagency and international report on Chinese hacking of US critical infrastructure. Lots of interesting details about how the group, called Volt Typhoon, accesses target networks and evades detection. Powered by WPeMatico
Category: cyberespionage
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Reuters is reporting that the FBI “had identified and disabled malware wielded by Russia’s FSB security service against an undisclosed number of American computers, a move they hoped would deal a death blow to one of Russia’s leading cyber spying programs.” The headline says that the FBI “sabotaged” the malware, which seems to be wrong. … Read More “FBI Disables Russian Malware” »
Now this is interesting: Thousands of pages of secret documents reveal how Vulkan’s engineers have worked for Russian military and intelligence agencies to support hacking operations, train operatives before attacks on national infrastructure, spread disinformation and control sections of the internet. The company’s work is linked to the federal security service or FSB, the domestic … Read More “Russian Cyberwarfare Documents Leaked” »
The New York Times is reporting that a US citizen’s phone was hacked by the Predator spyware. A U.S. and Greek national who worked on Meta’s security and trust team while based in Greece was placed under a yearlong wiretap by the Greek national intelligence service and hacked with a powerful cyberespionage tool, according to … Read More “US Citizen Hacked by Spyware” »
An ex-NSA employee has been charged with trying to sell classified data to the Russians (but instead actually talking to an undercover FBI agent). It’s a weird story, and the FBI affidavit raises more questions than it answers. The employee only worked for the NSA for three weeks—which is weird in itself. I can’t figure … Read More “NSA Employee Charged with Espionage” »
Back in 2018, we learned that covert system of websites that the CIA used for communications was compromised by—at least—China and Iran, and that the blunder caused a bunch of arrests, imprisonments, and executions. We’re now learning that the CIA is still “using an irresponsibly secured system for asset communication.” Citizen Lab did the research: … Read More “Security Vulnerabilities in Covert CIA Websites” »
Microsoft has a comprehensive report on the dozens of cyberattacks — and even more espionage operations — Russia has conducted against Ukraine as part of this war: At least six Russian Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors and other unattributed threats, have conducted destructive attacks, espionage operations, or both, while Russian military forces attack the country … Read More “Microsoft Issues Report of Russian Cyberattacks against Ukraine” »
This will be law soon: Companies critical to U.S. national interests will now have to report when they’re hacked or they pay ransomware, according to new rules approved by Congress. […] The reporting requirement legislation was approved by the House and the Senate on Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by President … Read More “US Critical Infrastructure Companies Will Have to Report When They Are Hacked” »
Remember when the US and Australian police surreptitiously owned and operated the encrypted cell phone app ANOM? They arrested 800 people in 2021 based on that operation. New documents received by Motherboard show that over 100 of those phones were shipped to users in the US, far more than previously believed. What’s most interesting to … Read More “Using Foreign Nationals to Bypass US Surveillance Restrictions” »
NSO Group’s descent into Internet pariah status continues. Its Pegasus spyware was used against nine US State Department employees. We don’t know which NSO Group customer trained the spyware on the US. But the company does: NSO Group said in a statement on Thursday that it did not have any indication their tools were used … Read More “NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware Used Against US State Department Officials” »