Author Archives: Chris Bing

A reminder for why government officials really shouldn’t use personal email accounts

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Top government officials continue to use personal email accounts to conduct official business even as it comes with significant  risks and runs the risk of violating federal policy, experts say. High-ranking Trump administration officials have been reportedly relying on a blend of both professional and personal email accounts to send messages to their contacts, according to separate reports by the New York Times and Washington Post. These individuals include the President’s daughter, Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom hold official White House positions. Additionally, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and presidential adviser Stephen Miller were also found to be using private email addresses. Former FBI Cyber Division Chief Technology Officer Milan Patel told CyberScoop that high ranking officials, like Kushner and Miller, run a high risk of targeted by nation-state sponsored hackers that seek to gather intelligence and personal details. These hackers would, Milan explained, first […]

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The leaked NSA hacking tools keep showing up in criminal schemes

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A hacking tool linked to the NSA continues to be used by cybercriminals in efforts to remotely steal money and confidential information from online banking users, according to research conducted by U.S. cybersecurity firm Proofpoint. In a recent blogpost by company researchers, Proofpoint said it had discovered two different banking trojans in the wild with computer code taken from a now publicly available exploit known as “EternalBlue,” or CVE-2017-0144. EternalBlue is believed to have been used by the NSA to gather intelligence. Originally leaked in April, the exploit works by targeting a dated vulnerability in Microsoft’s Server Message Block protocol. The vulnerability affects outdated versions of several different Microsoft operating systems. Microsoft already released a patch to fix the issue. In practice, EternalBlue will allow a hacker to quickly compromise multiple computers on a shared network as long as they are all similarly running dated software. “Patching Windows can take a […]

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Deloitte was breached last year, but investigators didn’t find out until March

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Deloitte, one of the world’s largest accounting firms, was breached late last year, The incident caused some confidential emails, business plans, usernames and passwords belonging to U.S. companies and governmental agencies to be compromised. The breach was reportedly focused on Deloitte’s U.S. business, which is headquartered in New York City. Although hackers are thought to have penetrated a company network around October 2016, the intrusion was not detected until March. Deloitte brought in roughly $38 billion in revenue last fiscal year by selling financial consulting, accounting services and cybersecurity advice to government organizations and Fortune 500 corporations. The breach was first reported by The Guardian. In an email sent to CyberScoop, a Deloitte spokesperson confirmed that the reported breach had in fact occurred, but said that only a small number of clients were ultimately affected. Questions related specifically to when the incident originally occurred or had been remediated were not answered. Deloitte’s […]

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CCleaner attack was focused on stealing data from top level tech firms

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A highly advanced hacking group infected more than 2 million computers with a backdoor implant in order to reach only a select few companies in order to steal trade secrets and intellectual property, according to analysis provided to CyberScoop and new findings published by cybersecurity firms Cisco and the affected vendor, Avast. Researchers believe the hacking group may be a advanced persistent threat (APT) tied to China, although the early evidence is inconclusive. An investigation is ongoing between Avast, its subsidiary Piriform and the FBI. If the operation was in fact backed by Beijing, it would likely violate a 2015 agreement made between the U.S. and China that halted economic espionage between the two countries. Accurate attribution at this stage of the probe remains difficult, experts say. “The attack was targeting select large technology and telecommunication companies in Japan, Taiwan, UK, Germany and the U.S.,” Avast chief technology officer Ondřej Vlček wrote […]

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Rudy Giuliani has had virtually no input on U.S. cybersecurity policy

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Eight months ago, Rudy Giuliani was named a top adviser to President Donald Trump on cybersecurity matters. Yet, former and current U.S. officials say since that declaration, Giuliani has contributed little to the administration and the advisory role has yet to bear anything worthwhile. Giuliani’s so-called “cyber working group,” a vague advisory committee officially announced by Trump’s presidential transition team in early January, is rarely in contact with White House staff. It is absent and disconnected from significant decisions, said a U.S. official with knowledge of White House affairs who spoke to CyberScoop on condition of anonymity. The source, like others in this story, declined to speak on the record citing the potential for blowback from Giuliani’s allies in government. “From what I saw, it didn’t exist,” said one former senior U.S. official. On May 11, White House homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert announced the rollout of a new executive order on […]

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Newly uncovered Iranian hacking group targeted energy, aerospace firms to steal secrets

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A Iranian hacking group has been targeting aerospace and energy companies in Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the U.S. since at least 2013 as part of an expansive cyber espionage operation to both gather intelligence and steal trade secrets, according to new research published Wednesday by U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye. This advanced persistent threat group (APT) is labeled APT33 by FireEye. Wednesday’s report by FireEye offers a distinct view of the group’s activity. APT33 is likely related to hacking campaign dubbed StoneDrill by Kaspersky Lab, researchers say. Based on information that appears to have been accidentally left behind in past attacks, analysts believe APT33 is linked to the Iranian government. Most of the group’s operations to date have largely focused on sending targeted phishing emails with malware-laden HTML links to infect specific computers with a custom backdoor implant known as “TURNEDUP.” But there’s also some evidence to suggest they’re capable of launching data […]

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How the Democrats plan to stop hackers from breaching 2018 campaigns

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“Never again,” says Aaron Trujillo, chief of staff for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “That’s the message.” Roughly one year ago, the DCCC — the campaign arm for Democrats in the House of Representatives — revealed that its systems were breached by hackers. The cyberattacks, as it was later reported, were connected to a broader operation that included multiple computer intrusions into the Democratic National Committee, the party’s national organization. Closer to Election Day, it was revealed that there were links between the DCCC breach incident and the GRU, Russia’s premier military intelligence agency. Russian government officials quickly denied that the Kremlin was involved in either incident. The breach marked the beginning of a larger issue. In August 2016, less than one month after the DCCC hack had been publicly disclosed, a blog written under the moniker of  “Guccifer 2.0” began publishing thousands of sensitive, internal DCCC documents. They included […]

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Hackers put malware in popular PC utility CCleaner

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Security researchers say hackers were able to booby-trap a popular tool offered by Czech cybersecurity firm Avast to remotely install a backdoor implant on millions of computers, according to new research by Cisco’s Talos team. A sabotaged software update mechanism in an outdated version of the file clean-up software program CCleaner allowed for a hacker to covertly download malicious code onto computers. The backdoor left infected devices open to future attacks and other malware. The news illustrates how hackers are actively targeting and in some cases, successfully exploiting vulnerabilities in the supply chains of prominent software vendors. The latest version of CCleaner was released in mid-September. The affected version, CCleaner 5.33, was only available for download for about one month. Piriform, a British software firm acquired by Avast in July, originally developed CCleaner. The program is predominantly used on computers running Windows, although there’s also a version for MacOS. “We […]

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Wyden demands answers from telecom giants, NSA over SS7 vulnerabilities

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Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden is demanding to know how America’s largest telecommunications companies plan to stop hackers from exploiting vulnerabilities in an outdated mobile-data transfer framework that remains fundamental to how cellphones function. Wyden sent a series of letters Thursday to the chief executives of AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile to learn about their efforts to mitigate risks associated with weak points in Signaling System No 7, or SS7, a set of protocols that allow for different mobile phone networks to connect to one another. In addition, the Oregon senator sent a letter to the NSA director, Adm. Michael Rogers, requesting information about past attempts by adversaries to hack into SS7 for the purpose of spying on Americans, including military personnel, civilians and companies. The Daily Beast was the first to report on Wyden’s multiple letters. There are well-known security issues with SS7, including reported cases of intelligence agencies exploiting vulnerabilities in […]

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In wake of Equifax breach, government shines light on entire industry

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Government agencies have contacted Equifax’s largest competitors to learn more about the potential for cyberattacks on the credit monitory industry as a whole, a senior federal official told CyberScoop. The recently revealed breach at Equifax — one of three multinational corporations that rely on comparable software to manage consumers’ credit reports and other highly sensitive records — caused upwards of 143 million records to be compromised and drew immediate attention by federal law enforcement. But other federal agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security, have been focusing on understanding the threat posed to the larger industry, according to the senior federal official, who spoke to CyberScoop on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing government investigation. The official said that because Equifax’s biggest competitors — namely TransUnion and Experian — also rely on the software like Apache Struts, a popular web server application, the outreach was necessary in order to learn more about the industry’s […]

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