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Thursday, December 07, 2017

Cyber: Canadian Hacker-for-Hire for Russia Pleads Guilty

DTA unveils whole-of-gov hardware marketplace

 Clickhole explains Bitcoin
Gov Info Security

Ex-NSA Hackers Worry China And Russia Will Try to Arrest ThemMotherboard. The deck: The US government has been indicting foreign government hackers, and American government hackers are worried China and Russia might start doing the same to them.
Americans Are Receiving Unordered Parcels From Chinese E-Criminals — And Can’t Do Anything To Stop Them Forbes




If you read one email this week, make it this email from an Appleby lawyer to five partners in remote havens. He asked: “What would be your courts’ likely view on a potential injunction made by the U.S. authorities [?]” He was trying to help PokerStars, an online gambling firm, which was trying to cater to U.S. players.





ICIJ has launched a new project, Alma Mater, and we’re asking for keen journalists to apply to work with us. We’ll give you access to new data relating to the more than 100 universities and colleges we found in the Paradise Papers.







Tomorrow, the EU will release a long-awaited ‘Blacklist’ of tax havens. But not everyone is happy with the way the list is being developed. Oxfam has called for the list to name European states as well.




That’s what EU Tax Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said at last week's European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion Committee (PANA) hearing. The committee grilled three reporters who worked on the Paradise Papers about what our network found.





Karim Baratov, 22, appeared in U.S. federal court Tuesday, where he pleaded guilty to hacking Gmail and Yandex webmail accounts of individuals earmarked by Russia's FSB state security service and exchanging the victims' account passwords for money. Baratov, a Canadian citizen and resident who was born in Kazakhstan, was one of four men named in a 47-count federal indictment filed in February and unsealed in March.
The Inquirer
November 27, 2017
NHS Digital has secured a £20m budget to spend on establishing a new cybersecurity centre that will constantly scan for attacks and probe the organisation's own defences using ethical hackers. The NHS will use the money to create "a national, near real-time monitoring and alerting service that covers the whole health and care system", said NHS Digital, with "extra specialist resources during peak periods".











AP November 27, 2017
Three Chinese nationals are accused of operating a cybersecurity firm that used phishing scams and malware to steal data from international corporations. A federal indictment unsealed Monday in Pittsburgh says the trio’s targets included Siemens AG, Moody’s Analytics in New York and Trimble Inc. in Sunnyvale, California. The indictment says they ran a company called Boyusec offering cybersecurity services to Chinese businesses. The men are accused of sending phony emails that look legitimate in order to hack into corporate computers across the world. Prosecutors say they concealed their identities and locations using aliases and valid credentials stolen from victim computer systems.



CyberScoop November 30, 2017
A software vulnerability disclosure program recently launched by popular drone maker DJI has turned into a messy public relations battle pitting several security researchers against the growing Chinese technology firm.


Reuters  November 28, 2017
SWIFT, the global messaging system used to move trillions of dollars each day, warned banks on Wednesday that the threat of digital heists is on the rise as hackers use increasingly sophisticated tools and techniques to launch new attacks. Brussels-based SWIFT has been urging banks to bolster security of computers used to transfer money since Bangladesh Bank lost $81 million in a February 2016 cyber heist that targeted central bank computers used to move funds. The new warning provided detail on some new techniques being used by the hackers. "Adversaries have advanced their knowledge," SWIFT said in a 16-page report co-written with BAE Systems Plc's cyber security division. "No system can be assumed to be totally infallible, or immune to attack."



The Hill  November 28, 2017
More than 90 percent of applications using the same computer programming library that, left unpatched, lead to the Equifax data breach also fail to keep the software up to date, reports the security firm Veracode. Veracode analyzes clients' computer code for known security vulnerabilities. Based on its scans between April and September, 91 percent of applications that use Apache Struts use a version of Struts with at least one high severity vulnerability. Equifax admitted earlier this year it had intended but failed to patch Struts before a hacker took advantage of a security flaw in the library. That hacker ultimately compromised the personal information of 145.5 million Americans. Veracode published that new statistic Tuesday as part of a new guide for developers on good coding practices printed as an addendum to its October "State of Security" report.





Nextgov  November 29, 2017




The Russian government will build an “independent internet” for use by itself, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa — the so-called BRICS nations — “in the event of global internet malfunctions,” the Russian news site RT reported on Tuesday. More precisely, Moscow intends to create an alternative to the global Domain Name System, or DNS, the directory that helps the browser on your computer or smartphone connect to the website server or other computer that you’re trying to reach. The Russians cited national security concerns, but the real reason may have more to do with Moscow’s own plans for offensive cyber operations. According to RT, the Russian Security Council discussed the idea during its October meeting, saying that “the increased capabilities of western nations to conduct offensive operations in the informational space as well as the increased readiness to exercise these capabilities pose a serious threat to Russia’s security.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has set a date of August 1, 2018, to complete the alternative DNS.





The Wall Street Journal  November 29, 2017
A Chinese internet-security firm that researchers say is behind sophisticated attacks on Western energy and defense companies disbanded this month amid U.S. accusations that some of its shareholders were involved in hacking and theft of trade secrets. A U.S. Department of Justice indictment unsealed Monday alleged that three Chinese nationals hacked into the emails of a Moody’s Analytics economist and stole confidential business information from German engineering giant Siemens AG . The indictment identified the three as employees of Guangdong Bo Yu Information Technology Co., also known as Boyusec. Filings with a Chinese government-run credit database show that Boyusec was deregistered Nov. 17. The filings also list two of those named in the indictment, Dong Hao and Wu Yingzhuo, as among Boyusec’s primary shareholders. Messrs. Dong and Wu couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday. Boyusec’s listed phone number rang unanswered, and an email to a company address didn’t immediately elicit a response.




US 'orchestrated' Russian spies scandal, says Kaspersky founder





Foreign influence crackdown a heads-up for everyone in government.
Senior Commonwealth officials will have to disclose if they go to work for foreign entities within three years of leaving the Australian Public Service, under new national security laws proposed by the Turnbull government.




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