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GERMANY’S
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY accused
Russia of deploying cyberattacks against the country, including the spread of
propaganda and attempts to destabilize the government. And why not? As we’ve noted before,
if the US election taught Putin anything it’s that hacking really can make an
impact.
That’s all the more reason to fully investigate Russia’s
disruptive role in our election, which this week President Obama,
two members of Congress, and prominent GOP Senator Lindsey Graham all did. Of
course, as with Obama’s comprehensive
cybersecurity plan, anything actionable will likely fall to the
Trump administration. And elsewhere in potentially hostile foreign powers, we took a look at incredibly
detailed 3-D renders of
North Korea’s secretive space command center.
Also this week, secure chat app Wickr introduced an encrypted, self-destructive
Slack alternative, while IBM Watson for Cybersecurity
took off the training wheels, and is now fighting cybercrime for
actual companies. And if we have to leave you with just one piece of advice,
let it be this: Don’t trust third-party stores
for Android apps. Ever. Just don’t.
And there’s more. Each Saturday we round up the news stories that
we didn’t break or cover in depth but that still deserve your attention. As
always, click on the headlines to read the full story in each link posted. And
stay safe out there.
Germany Accuses Russia of
Awfully Familiar-Sounding Hacking
Apparently not content to stop at the US election, Russia has set
its eyes on Germany next, according to that country’s intelligence agency. The
BfV noted an uptick in propaganda campaigns being used to spread
misinformation, with the ultimate intention of destabilizing the government and
empowering extremist forces. If that sounds familiar, keep in mind that Germany
also has an election of its own coming up next year, likely in September. Which
is to say, don’t expect this to end any time soon.
DailyMotion Hack Exposes 85
Million Accounts, But It Coulda Been Worse
Add popular video site DailyMotion to the ever-increasing list of
prominent websites fallen victim to a hack. This time, information from 85
million user accounts was stolen. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but the
modest upside is that only a small percentage of those had any information
attached to them beyond an email address. The 18 million records with passwords
listed are hashed with a strong algorithm, making them difficult—though not
impossible—to expose. No other personal information is at risk, which means
that while this is still bad news, it’s not quite as devastating as, say, the
360-million-strong Myspace hack that came to light this spring.
https://www.wired.com/2016/05/hack-brief-old-myspace-account-just-came-back-haunt/
The NSA’s Staffing Woes
Continue
The NSA’s brain drain continues apace. In a talk this past
Tuesday, former NSA director Keith Alexander said that people were
“increasingly leaving in large numbers,” citing high salaries and private
cybersecurity firms as a major retention impediment. That’s been an issue for
years, but a report from CyberScoop https://www.cyberscoop.com/nsa-morale-down-keith-alexander-mike-rogers/
claims that it’s gotten significantly worse in recent months. What’s less clear
is how to reverse the brain drain, and what its implications are for US
security going forward.
Clever Malware Managed to Hide
in Individual Banner Ad Pixels
Malware of any stripe is bad, but sometimes you can still tip your
cap at ingenuity. Researchers at Eset this week revealed code that managed to
hide itself in a heavily modified version of open-source traffic-measuring
package Countly. That’s how it hitched a ride on various ad networks, which
couldn’t spot anything malicious in the code. The only indication of its
presence is that it subtly changed the transparency of individual pixels,
making it practically invisible to the human eye. It only targeted a subset of
people using both Internet Explorer an unpatched Flash, but still, clever should
get its due.
A DNS Vulnerability Left Over a
Hundred Thousand Domains Exposed
Matthew Bryant this week detailed how a DNS vulnerability that had been
identified at cloud service provider Digital Ocean was also an issue at several
similar companies, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud DNS, and
Rackspace. In practice, it lets an attacker take over a domain and use it for
malware or spam campaigns. At least 120,000 domains were implicated, though
Bryant says most companies he reached out to were responsive about patching.
Except Rackspace, which basically shrugged it off. But don’t worry! If you’re a
Rackspace customers, Bryant also explains how to protect yourself.
Source: https://www.wired.com/2016/12/security-news-roundup/