CyberWire Daily

In today’s podcast, we hear that the Five Eyes agreed to contain Huawei’s potential for espionage. Huawei and ZTE both continue their charm offensive to convince international customers it’s safe to use their gear. Senate commissioned report on Russian influence operations finds the St. Petersburg troll farmers “fluent in American trolling.” Boomstortion scammers now threaten acid attacks. PewDieP...

Researchers at Risk Based Security took a detailed look back at the 2014 Sony hack, comparing analysis that occurred while the facts were still unfolding with what we know, today. There are interesting lessons to be learned, especially when it comes to attribution. Brian Martin is V.P. of vulnerability intelligence at Risk Based Security, and he shares their findings. The research can be found her...

In today’s podcast, we hear about false flag cyberattacks that mimic state actors, especially Chinese state actors. Chinese intelligence services are prospecting US Navy contractors. Russia’s Fancy Bear continues its worldwide phishing campaign. ISIS claims the career criminal responsible for the Strasbourg Christmas market killings as one of its soldiers. And a bogus bomb threat is being circulat...

In today’s podcast we hear that the Saipem hack looks like a new Shamoon variant. Charming Kitten started prowling through relevant places after the Iran sanctions became more serious. US authorities denounce Chinese espionage, especially industrial espionage, but there are as yet no new indictments or sanctions. Concerns mount over Chinese influence operations. Another Canadian may be in Chinese...

In today’s podcast, we hear some of McAfee’s description of Operation Sharpshooter, an ambitious cyber reconnaissance campaign. Huawei’s CFO Meng makes bail in Vancouver, and China reacts sharply to the arrest. The US is said to be preparing sanctions and indictments in response to various Chinese hacking activities. A no-confidence vote is called in the UK. In France, President Macron makes conce...

Audit finds no “Chinese spy chips” on Supermicro motherboards. Huawei CFO Meng’s hearing continues. Oil services firm’s servers attacked. Seedworm shows some new tricks. Secure instant messaging apps may be less secure than hoped. A new adware strain reported. Mr. Pichai goes to Washington, and Uncle Pennybags puts in an appearance. The US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reports on...

In today’s podcast, we hear that Huawei’s CFO awaits her immediate fate in a Vancouver detention facility, where she faces possible extradition to the US on a sanctions-violation beef. Huawei itself receives hostile scrutiny from the Five Eyes, the EU, and Japan. US indictments are expected soon in other IP theft cases involving China. Upgrade Kubernetes. Russia and Ukraine swap cyberattacks in th...

Researchers at Trend Micro uncovered a supply chain attack targeting organizations in South Korea. With the goal of information theft, attackers compromised the update server of a third party support provider, resulting in the installation of a RAT, or remote access trojan. Rik Ferguson is Vice President of Security Research at Trend Micro, and he guides us through their discoveries. The research...

In today’s podcast we hear that Huawei’s CFO remains in Canadian custody, perhaps facing extradition to the US. All Five Eyes have now expressed strong reservations about Huawei on security grounds. They’ve been joined in this by Japan and the European Union. Proofpoint sees a shift in cybercrime toward more carefully targeted and thoughtful social engineering. Kaspersky describes “DarkVishnaya,”...

In today’s podcast, we hear that Huawei’s CFO was arrested in Vancouver on a US sanctions beef. Anonymous sources tell Reuters Chinese intelligence was behind the Marriott hack. A Flash zero-day is used in an attack against a Russian hospital. SamSam warnings and new US indictments. In the UK, Parliament releases internal Facebook emails that suggest discreditable data-use practices. Facebook says...

In today’s podcast, we hear that CoAp-based DDoS attacks are on the rise. A Nigerian gang has done some industrial-scale work on business email compromise. Ukraine says it stopped a major Russian cyber attack. The EU looks toward its May elections and determines to do something about disinformation. The US National Republican Congressional Committee sustains an email compromise. Attribtution of a...

In today’s podcast we hear how Fancy Bears and free-range catphish have been disporting themselves in the Czech Republic. China reported to have used watering hole attacks to gain entry into Australian institutions. Quora suffers a data breach. Marriott’s breach response earns mediocre marks. A Kubernetes privilege escalation flaw is found and patched. Two scammy apps are ejected from Apple’s App...

In today’s podcast, we hear that senior US and UK officials have harsh words for Russian actions in cyberspace even as President Putin undertakes a charm offensive at the G20 meetings. (In fairness to the US and UK officials, it’s a pretty dour charm offensive.) Iran ups its influence operations game. Legal investigations and legislative responses to the Marriott breach begin. A US Court upholds t...

In the second episode of our new, four-part series, called “Ground Truth or Consequences: the challenges and opportunities of regulation in cyberspace,” we take a look at the impact GDPR has had since it's implementation in May 2018. Joining us are Emily Mossburg from Deloitte, Caleb Barlow from IBM and Steve Durbin from ISF. Later in the program we'll hear from Jason Hart, CTO for enterprise and...

Researchers from Secureworks' Counter Threat Unit have been tracking a threat group spoofing login pages for universities. Evidence suggests the Iranian group Cobalt Dickens is likely responsible. Allison Wikoff is a senior researcher at Secureworks, and she joins us to share what they've found. The original research is here: https://www.secureworks.com/blog/back-to-school-cobalt-dickens-targets-u...

In today’s podcast we hear about Marriott’s big breach. And Dunkin’ Donuts big breach. And, and, Urban Massage’s embarrassing exposure. Lessons are drawn about third-party risk, password reuse, and the importance of being less creepy to the people you do business with. Fancy Bear shows up to paw at the phish swimming in Germany’s government. And how much did SamSam really cost people? FBI? DoJ? Is...

In today’s podcast, we hear warnings of Russian recon “degradation” of the North American power grid. Information operations in Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine. Factions in Yemen’s civil war contest cyberspace (and fiber optic cables). Eternal Silence exploits systems not patched against EternalBlue and EternalRed. Dell tells its customers to reset their passwords. And the US indicts two Irani...

In today’s podcast, we hear that DNSpionage espionage tools are hitting Middle Eastern targets. Iran’s Cobalt Dickens returns to pester universities. Lawful intercept vendors receive more scrutiny, and that scrutiny suggests iOS might not have escaped their attention as much as many had assumed. Facebook gets grilled in London. Nine Western countries issue a joint communique resolving to control “...

In today’s podcast we hear that the Rotexy Trojan has evolved into phishing and ransomware. Bad apps found in Google Play. An open source library used in cryptocurrency wallets had a wide-open backdoor. Facebook goes before Parliament, which seems in a pretty feisty mood. Pegasus spyware found to have been deployed against journalists in Mexico and elsewhere. Russia escalates its hybrid war agains...

In today’s podcast we hear that Emotet ramped up for Black Friday—beware of the spam. Social engineering and the power grid. Industrial espionage resurfaces as an issue in Sino-American relations. Huawei remains unforgiven in Washington. China’s emerging social credit system. Bottom-up social control in the US: first they came for the dogwalkers. Making a Dutch book on social media. Russia tighten...

In today’s podcast, we hear that Amazon has offered customers a modified, limited hangout on some kind of data exposure. The online retailer says everything’s OK, but it hasn’t said much else. Facebook is back online—yesterday’s outage attributed to a server misconfiguration. Shoppers and retailers prepare for Cyber Weekend. Tessa88, the dark web data hawker, may have been identified. Cyber espion...

In today’s podcast, we hear about nations behaving badly (but from the point-of-view of cyberespionage they’re doing, unfortunately, well). The Lazarus Group is back robbing banks in Asia and Latin America. Russia’s Hades Group, known for Olympic Destroyer, is back, too. Gamaredon and Cozy Bear have returned, respectively pestering Ukraine and the US. Iran’s OilRig is upping its game with just-in-...

In today’s podcast, we hear that CISA is now an agency within DHS. Cozy Bear is back, and spearphishing in American civilian waters. Ukrainian authorities say they’ve detected and blocked a malware campaign that appears targeted against former Soviet Republics. A reported Gmail issue may make for more plausible social engineering. The Outlaw criminal group expands into cryptojacking. Infrastructur...

The NETSCOUT Arbor ASERT team has been tracking Cobalt Group campaigns targeting financial institutions. Richard Hummel is manager of threat intelligence with ASERT, and he joins us to share his team's findings.  The research can be found here: https://asert.arbornetworks.com/double-the-infection-double-the-fun/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s podcast, we ask a question: when does a military exercise become hybrid warfare? Answer: when it affects civilian safety. Like with GPS jamming. Russian banks are sustaining a major, and well-crafted, phishing campaign. An unprotected server exposes SMS messages. China tightens laws enabling censorship and social control. It also helps Venezuela to do likewise. And did the US indict Jul...