Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans The NSO Group, the company behind the hack that forced Apple to release emergency iOS and Mac OS X updates to patch up the vulnerabilities, is just one of several firms that sell digital spying services, with governments and law The…
Russia’s Hackathon Continues, Targeting The New York Times And Other News Agencies
Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans If this keeps up, the list of entities not hacked by Russian intelligence will be shorter than the list of those who have. [Caution: autoplay annoyance ahead.] Hackers thought to be working for Russian intelligence have carried out a series The…
Government Agencies Not Doing Enough To Protect IT Systems
Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans NASA and the U.S. Department of State were among the federal agencies that received low marks on IT security, according to a recent report card issued by the New York-based firm Security Scorecard. Also receiving low grades were the states of…
How Agencies Can Strengthen Cybersecurity
Buried in the millions of lines of code that run everything from operating systems to applications are the next generation of vulnerabilities, waiting to be discovered and exploited. Left unaddressed, these vulnerabilities jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity and availability of government data and information systems. Luckily, vulnerability management tools can identify…
He is special guest at the Ground Zero Summit 2015 being organised by Indian Infosec Consortium – a group of ethical hackers. “Threat to national security has moved to the digital dimension. Terrorist organisations have turned social networks and online forums into recruitment hotbeds and propaganda mechanisms. We need a security apparatus in the digital space to address this threat. Hackers are the face of this digital army.” The actor said he is bringing his whole team including scriptwriters of the show to observe and interact with the ethical hacker community. (Also Read: Tabu Has Shown Interest in 24, Says Director ) “From November 22, I will start shooting for 24. It will go on air in 2016. When an actor prepares for a role, we often start to live like the character. Some call it method acting. We meet real life people like the character and try to understand their nuances, their life,” he said. As per the summit’s website, speakers will share details of the espionage mission as well as hold sessions on hacking of cellular networks, medical devices in hospitals, using technical loopholes in them. The consortium claims to have discovered cyber espionage operation under which phones of Indian Army personnel, who had downloaded some mobile application related to news, had been compromised by hackers based in Pakistan. IIC CEO Jiten Jain has said that the findings were handed over to security agencies who promptly acted and sanitised the infected handset early this year.
Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans He is special guest at the Ground Zero Summit 2015 being organised by Indian Infosec Consortium – a group of ethical hackers. “Threat to national security has moved to the digital dimension. Terrorist organisations have turned social networks and online forums…
ISIS social media accounts are buzzing with a spreadsheet of personal data on employees of the American, British, and Australian governments, including military personnel. The Islamic State claims this list was compiled using data stolen from government systems by its “hacking division,” although some experts who have reviewed the list say most of it was more likely created using simple Google searches of publicly available data. There are about 1,400 individuals included on the list. The list was accompanied by a message from the “Islamic State Hacking Division,” transcribed by Sky News: O Crusaders, as you continue your aggression towards the Islamic State and your bombing campaign against the Muslims, know that we are in your emails and computer systems, watching and recording your every move. We have your names and addresses, we are in your emails and social media accounts, we are extracting confidential data and passing on your personal information to the soldiers of the khilafah, who soon with the permission of Allah will strike at your necks in your own lands. So wait, we too are waiting. The Sydney Morning Herald criticizes Australian officials for being “caught on their heels” by the hit list, which includes Defense Force employees and a Victorian MP. Even though “Australia’s most senior Islamic State militant, former Melbourne man and terror recruiter Neil Prakash” was posting links to the hit list early Wednesday morning, at least half of the Australians targeted by ISIS said they were unaware of the threat until they were informed by the media… which contacted them using the phone numbers published by the Islamic State. “I’m completely at a loss,” said the aforementioned MP, who at least has access to a security detail assigned to protect elected officials. “What do I do? The police probably know less than you and I.” Defense Force employees on the list said they were in shock no one from the government had warned them. Various agencies of the Australian government declined to discuss the matter. In addition to Prakash – who crowed “Cyber war got em shook!” and “Kill them where you find them and enslave their women” on Twitter – the Herald reports “other prominent militants, including British man Junaid Hussain, who is third on a CIA kill list of Islamic State operatives, also used social media to promote the leak and encourage attacks.” Sky News reports the hit list includes British Foreign Office employees, plus a “local council employee.” Most of the names on the list are American, including personnel from the Air Force, Marines, NASA, FBI, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Russian state outlet RT.com says the list also includes “a worker in an Israeli magistrate’s court” and “someone in a college in Mississippi.” The RT.com article mentions some reasons for skepticism about the Islamic State’s claim that this list includes confidential information obtained by hackers: some of the phone numbers appear to be disconnected, while the purportedly stolen U.S. military passwords appearing on the list are “too weak to pass the guidelines of an official computer system operated by the Pentagon.” The Sydney Morning Herald also found some of the information published on the list to be outdated. “This is the second or third time they’ve claimed that and the first two times I’ll tell you, whatever lists they got were not taken by any cyber attack,” said Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno, as quoted by the UK Guardian. The Guardian also cites the opinion of computer security expert Troy Hunt, who said the of the supposedly hacked data: “It’s pretty clear that it’s been aggregated from different sources. It’s been put together on the basis of a .gov or .mil address. Even the passwords, they’re not strong enough to have come from a corporate or government. They’re not even strong enough to have come from an online service – you can’t create a Gmail account, for example, with a password of less than eight characters, and here we’re seeing some passwords of three letters.” The UK Daily Mail notes that Twitter administrators appear to have shut down the Islamic State Hacking Division’s account three times on Wednesday while it attempted to spread its hit list around, leading to the creation of a fourth terrorist account with the message, “Kuffar seem to be raging.”
Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans ISIS social media accounts are buzzing with a spreadsheet of personal data on employees of the American, British, and Australian governments, including military personnel. The Islamic State claims this list was compiled using data stolen from government systems by its “hacking…
A research company discovered the login credentials from 47 government agencies just sitting in plain sight on the internet
Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans New research indicates that the login credentials of government employees have been online for years. Threat intelligence company Recorded Future just released a bombshell report indicating that these credentials are associated with 47 US government agencies. This data was discovered in…
Harrisburg fails to report 2014 crime statistics; other agencies affected by server malfunction
Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans HARRISBURG- For the second year in a row, Harrisburg’s crime statistics might not be included in the FBI’s annual analysis. The capital city failed to report a single month’s worth of crime data last year. The city was supposed to submit…
ACLU pushesACLU pushes for state law restricting cellphone tracking by CMPD, other agencies
Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans Powered by Max Banner Ads RALEIGH The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina on Thursday called for new laws that would stop CMPD and other police departments from secretly tracking cellphones without a search warrant. About 20 people, including lawmakers,…
Federal agencies investigating how hacker gained access to patient data
Source: National Cyber Security – Produced By Gregory Evans The FBI and other federal agencies are continuing to investigate a cyberattack that hacked personal information from 4.5 million U.S. health patients, including those at Spartanburg-based Mary Black Health System. Authorities determined in July that Community Health Systems, Inc. was […]…