CyberWire Daily

In today's podcast we hear about Pakistani phishing in the Indian Army's pond. ISIS loses prophetically important town of Dabiq, and must adjust its messaging accordingly. WikiLeaks continues to poke at the Clinton campaign. Fancy Bear is again in the spotlight as the US preps a response to Russian election hacking. IoT malware—Mirai and LuaBot—affects networking gear. Dyre's masters are back and...

In today's podcast we follow the continuing story of election hacks, and the varying but convergent motives behind them. We get a side helping of good government advice from Mr. Putin. (Thanks, Vlad!) Al Qaeda tries to reach the Millennial jihadist market with ISIS-like information operations. The Internet-of-Things enhances its reputation as an Internet-of-Trouble. Cyber stocks see turbulence as...

In today's podcast, we hear about possible patriotic hacktivism in South Asia. IoT devices are being exploited as proxies, and exploit kits continue to serve up ransomware against poorly managed systems. Market volatility puts cyber stocks on a roller coaster. The US continues to work out its proportional response to Russian election hacking. Russia says it's willing to ride out all that domestic...

In today's podcast we take a quick look back at Patch Tuesday. Amazon gets solid reviews for a password reset campaign. A new Trojan is caught manipulating SWIFT fund transfer logs. IoT botnets worry ecommerce sites, and the EU's proposed stickers seem unlikely to allay those concerns. Australia confirms a foreign intelligence service hacked its Bureau of Meteorology, but it won't say which foreig...

In today's podcast, we hear about Industrial control system worries in the electrical power sector. IoT botnets spook the EU, and research into Mirai reveals some interesting features of last month's DDoS attacks. The US Intelligence Community says officially that the Russians are trying to influence US elections. The Russians say it's rubbish, and the candidates swap accusations. WikiLeaks doxes...

In today's podcast we discuss the consensus that Guccifer 2.0 didn't actually hack the Clinton Foundation. We hear how information operations might work during an election. The arrested NSA contractor's alleged motives remain unclear. The Mirai botnet got its exploitable vulnerabilities by downstream propagation of default credentials. The US Surgeon General discloses a breach. Dr. Charles Clancy...

In today's podcast we learn about the FBIs' arrest of an NSA contract worker—classified material was found in his home and vehicle. TalkTalk gets a record fine—£400,000, which comes to a hundred thousand hackerweight—for its 2015 data breach. Yahoo! email surveillance allegations amount to a story that's still murky and anonymously sourced. The Johns Hopkins University's Joe Carrigan stops by to d...

In today's podcast, we learn that Guccifer 2.0 is back, but that few are buying what he, she, or they are selling. Experts continue to warn of Russian information operations directed against the perceived legitimacy of US elections. International norms of cyber conflict. IoT-based DDoS concerns rise with wide distribution of MIrai source code. Flashpoint finds Floki Bot for sale in the underground...

In today's podcast we hear about cyber conflict and its place in the international order, including especially its place in Russian-American relations. The implications of the Mirai botnet and the release of its source code. Kaspersky breaks the MarsJoke crypto ransomware. Russia indicates a crackdown on cybercrime (maybe). Ben Yelin from UMD CHHS explains changes the FBI wants to Rule 41. Igor Vo...

In today's podcast, we hear about Homeland Security's warnings that state election systems are being probed by potential attackers. Newsweek speculates that a brief DDoS attack it sustained was election-related (they also suspect the Russians—no bear named yet). Mirai source code used in large KrebsOnSecurity DDoS published in a hacker forum. The University of Maryland's Jonathan Katz explains why...

In today's podcast, we hear about how IoT botnets bring scunion across the Internet, and why security cameras are attractive to bot rustlers. InfoArmor's explanation of the Yahoo! breach gains traction among observers. Europol warns that ransomware is on the rise. Zerodium raises its iOS 10 remote jailbreak bounty to a cool million and a half. US states continue to grapple with election hacking. M...

In today's podcast we hear predictions that terabit-per-second DDoS attacks may be on their way toward becoming the new normal. We consider the real threat that lies in the IoT. (A hint: security cameras are to the Internet what squirrels are to the power grid.) More concerns about election hacking surface in the US. Dr. Charles Clancy from Virgnia Tech's Hume Center explains software defined netw...

In today's podcast, we hear about alleged Russian hacking and information operations, and US investigations of the same. The Russian goal is thought to be the undermining of US elections' credibility.  DDoS has come to the IoT. Yahoo! security receives some harsh scrutiny. TheDarkOverlord is back, and extorting investment bankers. Kathleen Smith from ClearedJobs.net returns for more conversation a...

In today's podcast we follow developments in the Yahoo! breach. Fancy Bear is back, and distributing a Mac Trojan to aerospace companies. Investigation of the Shadow Brokers' leak suggests inadvertent exposure, not hackers or moles. A new variant of Virlock ransomware is out in the wild. The US Justice Department warns of IoT threats. A Hamburg magistrate finds Facebook in violation of German priv...

In today's podcast, we follow the latest on the Yahoo! breach. British sources say GCHQ stopped a Russian attack on last year's UK general election. A White House staffer's email is hacked. KrebsOnSecurity is back, but many see a lesson in the dangers of IoT botnets and democratized censorship. Researchers describe iOS and Android vulnerabilities. The FBI releases more documents from its State Dep...

In today's podcast, Yahoo!'s really bad breach. We hear about Raum, a malicious tool the Black Team is offering in select criminal markets on a pay-per-install basis. In industry news, we learn that Vista Equity Partners is taking Infoblox private. Webroot is acquiring CyberFlow Analytics, Oracle has bought Palerra, and Elastic has acquired Prelert. White Ops closes a $20 million Series B round.  ...

In today's podcast, we hear more on the recent hacking of German political parties. Russia reorganizes its security services—apparently the KGB is back in everything but name.  KrebsOnSecurity sustains a record-breaking DDoS attack. Yahoo! discloses a record breaking data breach. Ben Yelin from the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security weighs in on a possible Snowden pardo...

In today's podcast, we hear about Russian hackers turning their attention to German political targets as well as politicians in the US. The son-of-Shadow-Brokers vulnerability Cisco discovered is being exploited in the wild. New strains of ransomware are out—Mamba is as dangerous to networks as its namesake is to human tissue. The Air Force Association is taking up cyber in its annual meetings. Th...

In today's podcast we hear about how the FBI is seeking to impose costs on Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear. Election hacking fears remain, despite DHS reassurances, and industry sources warn of privacy risks within campaign databases. Investigation continues into the ISIS-claimed weekend attacks. Cisco patches a firewall vulnerability related to a Shadow Brokers' exploit. Dr. Charles Clancy from Virginia...

In today's podcast we offer updates on the weekend's attacks against US targets in Minnesota, New York, and New Jersey. So far the cyber dimension is limited to ISIS cheerleading and claiming credit online, but the investigations are still in their early stages. Fancy Bear doxes more athletes from the WADA networks. Fancy's also still interested in US elections, and experts point out that releasin...

In today's podcast, we hear about VIPs everywhere rushing to delete their emails before Fancy Bear gets her paws into them. Opinion leaders rumble about the Cyber War having picked up where the Cold War left off. Election security concerns may prompt US Senate hearings. British companies take a look at operations in the Baltimore-Washington area. Other industry notes include VC rounds, M&A activit...

In today's podcast we get an increasingly familiar update: Fancy Bear is dancing and prancing through poorly protected networks, and she doesn't seem to care who knows it. More politically motivated hacking out of Russia prompts US promises of investigation and costs to be imposed. Failures in digital hygiene continue to be exploited. SCADA hacks worry the electrical grid. Joe Carrigan from the Jo...

In today's podcast we discuss the posting of more documents swiped from the US Democratic Party, which most consider the work of Russia's Fancy Bear. US officials continue to worry about election hacking. "Periscope skimming" is a new ATM hack. The US government mulls the reorganization of its cyber agencies. Raj Gopalakrishna, Chief Software Architect at Acalvio, provides his insights on machine...

It's Patch Tuesday, and time to apply the latest fixes from Redmond. Symantec's August Security Report is out. Middlemen make it tough to track exploit sales. GovRAT continues to afflict networks in the wild. Lessons from private key exposure. Russia says the international order isn't the same thing as the American order. The US and the UK conclude a cyber cooperation agreement. More bogus apps fo...

In today's podcast we wrap up our coverage of last week's Intelligence and National Security Summit, discussing some of the issues surrounding cyber conflict among nation-states and terrorist organizations. Unresolved issues of cyber deterrence and where it should fit into the spectrum of conflict. Goals of election hacking and other influence operations, from propaganda through lobbying through b...