CyberWire Daily

The cybersecurity space is nothing if not crowded. Yet despite all the fantastic offers and promises being made by vendors, the sober reality persists that spending has not equated to improved security. Did you know that 80% of IT security budgets are focused on detection and containment controls, even though 70% of security experts believe that a greater focus on prevention would strengthen their...

After the 2016 General Election, the talk was all around foreign meddling. Rumors swirled that some votes may have been changed or influenced by state-sponsored actors. Sanctions and accusations followed. Four years later, is the U.S. any more prepared to protect the results of its largest elections? More than you may realize. Talos researchers take a deep dive into election security after spendin...

The US Commerce Department announces a clampdown on TikTok and WeChat, to begin Sunday. An overview of the Grayfly and Blackfly units of APT41. Maze begins delivering payloads inside a VM. A ransomware attack on a Düsseldorf hospital is implicated in the death of a patient. Google wants less stalkerware and misrepresentation in the Play store. Caleb Barlow from Cynergistek on the Military's CMMC p...

Cerberus is available for free, the Empire Market’s old and betrayed customers are probably looking for another marketplace where English is spoken, and it seems the Russian mob is selling access to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. NSA thinks US elections will be safe and secure, but that influence operations are probably here to stay. Betsy Carmelite from BAH on medical device security, our guest is...

CISA and the FBI warn of extensive Iranian cyberattacks that exploit flaws in widely used VPNs. The US indicts two men for website defacements undertaken for the benefit of Iran, and in retribution for the US drone strike that killed Quds Force commander Soleimani. The US has also indicted seven in a cybercrime and cyberespionage wave conducted in conjunction with Wicked Panda. Ethiopian strife ma...

Details of the Zerologon vulnerability are published, and it seems a serious one indeed. CISA describes Chinese cyberespionage practices--they’re not exotic, but they’re effective. What’s the difference between highly targeted market research and intelligence collection against individuals? Better commercials? Ben Yelin explains a 9th circuit court opinion with 4th amendment implications. Our gues...

Social engineers use text from legitimate recent warnings. Cybercrooks go for whatever they can get from software about to reach the end of its life. A big database filled with individual information is leaked from a Chinese government contractor. In the race to do whatever it is US companies hope to do with TikTok, Microsoft is apparently out, but Oracle is apparently in. Rick Howard looks at red...

A reading of “Ode to Wealthy Elite”, written circa August 16, 2016. From “The collected works of the Shadow Brokers, volume I,” read by D.W. Bittner, compiled and edited by the CyberWire. The Shadow Brokers represent themselves as hackers who sell stolen exploits, hacking tools, and other scandalous material online to the detriment of Wealthy Elite, whose hidden hands the ShadowBrokers wish to con...

Cybersecurity Sales Engineer Brandon Robinson shares how he built his career in technology and the barriers he experienced along the way. He talks about how his job involves him interacting with customers at the highest levels making sure their solution is meeting needs. In addition, Brandon describes how as a black man and a trailblazer, he's been met with resistance. His positive spin on moving...

Researchers at Symantec spotted a Sodinokibi targeted ransomware campaign in which the attackers are also scanning the networks of some victims for credit card or point of sale (PoS) software. It is not clear if the attackers are targeting this software for encryption or because they want to scrape this information as a way to make even more money from this attack. Joining us in this week's Resear...

Kittens and Pandas and Bears, oh my. Ransomware gets its skates on, but it still has loose idiomatic control. CISA has some advice on email. While at home on pandemic lockdown, a lot of people (not you) are spending too much time on unedifying sites. Momentum Cyber looks at the state of the cybersecurity sector in 2020. The SINET 16 have been announced. Chris Novak from Verizon on understanding th...

Ransomware hits a major data center provider, but appears to have left service unaffected. There’s a thriving criminal market for website defacement tools: vandals can be consumers, too. CDRThief does what its name implies. ByteDance tried negotiating TikTok’s American future. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission starts enforcing Schrems II against Facebook. Awais Rashid outlines software developm...

Back to school time for everyone...or it would be, if it weren’t for all that ransomware. The sad criminal underworld stealing from online gamers. Notes on Patch Tuesday. Joe Carrigan considers digital comfort zones. Our guest is Sandra Wheatley from Fortinet with key findings from their new report on the cybersecurity skills shortage. And some thoughts on election security and disinformation from...

Thanos is back, but as ransomware or a wiper? Cyber agencies in France, Japan, and New Zealand warn of a spike in Emotet infections. Australian authorities say 186,00 were affected by the breach at Services NSW. Georgia decries cyberespionage at its Lugar Lab. COVID-19 cyberespionage efforts have been intense, as have counterintelligence efforts designed to defend labs and supply chains. Rick Howa...

Dave shares a story about our own state of Maryland trying to crack down on ransomware, Ben shares a New York Times story about facial recognition software, and later in the show our conversation with Stuart Thompson from the New York Times on the article, Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy. Links to stories: How ransomware bill would tighten focus on the threat in Maryland The Secre...

Technology attorney and startup chief of staff Elizabeth Wharton shares her experiences and how she came to work with companies in technology. Elizabeth talks about how she always liked solving problems and Nancy Drew mysteries, but not litigation. These morphed finding into her home in the policy legal world and some time later, technology law. Elizabeth describes how she loves planning and strat...

A look at the realities of ransomware from Sophos, including an industry-first detailed look at new detection evasion techniques in WastedLocker ransomware attacks that leverage the Windows Cache Manager and memory-mapped I/O to encrypt files. A complementary article examines the evasion-centric arms race of ransomware, providing a months-long review of how cybercriminals have been escalating and...

Ransom DDoS: it’s been around for awhile, but now it’s become a much bigger thing. Phishing campaigns are putting malicious payloads into legitimate file-sharing services. Malek Ben Salem from Accenture on proactive "alpha innovator" organizations. Our guest is Joseph Marks from The Washington Post on his recent coverage of election security. And it’s time to go back to school, at least virtually,...

Updates on cyberattacks against Norway’s parliament and the Hedmark region. A popular TikTok page is infested with scammers. Magecart’s Inter scanner gains criminal market share. Thomas Etheridge from CrowdStrike on the many potential benefits of outsourced threat hunting. Our guest is Lauren Bean Buitta from Girl Security on closing the gender gap in national security. Heading back to school in M...

Facebook’s August takedowns included coordinated inauthenticity from Pakistan, Russia (that’s St. Petersburg, with a waystation in DC), and a US strategic communication firm. CISA and the FBI say nope, the Russians weren’t in voter databases. A Chinese APT turns its attention from Europe back to Tibet. A new cryptocurrency stealer is active in Central Europe. New Zealand DDoS attacks may be an ext...

An election hack that wasn’t. More DDoS in New Zealand’s stock exchange. A look at how Iranian cyber contractors make money as a byproduct of cyberespionage. Malware sneeks past Apple’s notarization process. The bandit economy that’s grown up around Fortnite. Ben Yelin looks at how the upcoming US elections could direct the nation’s cybersecurity strategies. Our guest is Julian Waits from Devo wit...

New Zealand’s stock exchange continues to fight through offshore DDoS attacks. Sunday’s Internet outage was a glitch, not an attack. China enacts new technology export controls that may impede the sale of TikTok. Danish authorities investigate allegations of data sharing with NSA. North Korea says it doesn’t rob banks, but Americans do. Caleb Barlow looks at security validation and how it can help...

Host of Darknet Diaries podcast Jack Rhysider shares his experiences from studying computer engineering at university to his strategy of using gamification on his career that led to him landing in the security space. Jack talks about how his wide experiences came together in security and what prompted him to learn podcasting. Jack endeavors to share the whole story through his podcasts while makin...

Docker containers have been gaining popularity over the past few years as an effective way of packaging software applications. Docker Hub provides a strong community-based model for users and companies to share their software applications. This is also attracting the attention of malicious actors intending to make money by cryptojacking within Docker containers and using Docker Hub to distribute t...

Denial-of-service attacks continue to cripple New Zealand’s NZX stock exchange. The Empire criminal market has exited, and done so with its users funds. US authorities have filed for civil forfeiture of Hidden Cobra’s stolen crytpo assets. An Instagram hijacking campaign is under way. Qbot and Emotet are back, and together again. The former Green Beret who allegedly spied for the GRU offers an ins...