Author Archives: Chris Bing

Maersk may lose up to $300M due to NotPetya attack

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The world’s largest container shipping company, A.P. Moller-Maersk, has said that it expects as much as a $300 million dip in profits due to a June 27 ransomware incident, the firm noted in a public report released Wednesday. Maersk executives said they expected losses of between $200 million and $300 million — which will be reflected in the next earnings report — because of a “significant business interruption” caused by the spread of a ransomware variant known as NotPetya inside corporate networks. The disclosure was attached to Maersk’s second-quarter earnings report. Public companies are required to publicly update their investors on the state of the business once every fiscal quarter. While NotPetya was engineered to look like ordinary ransomware, the virus held hidden code that would delete files on an infected computer. Ransomware is not typically designed to be destructive. In most cases, ransomware operators hope to encrypt files on […]

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Hacker posted stolen material from Mandiant researcher in attempt to damage FireEye stock

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A hacker broke into an Israeli-based security researcher’s personal email account one year ago, but waited until the day before his employer, U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye, announced earnings to publish the stolen material in an effort designed to damage the company’s stock value, people familiar with the matter told CyberScoop. While the investigation is ongoing, it’s believed that the attacker’s underlying motive was to cause financial and reputational damage to FireEye. The incident highlights how a hacker can stoke fears of a corporate breach to negatively affect the stock price of a specific, targeted company. The attacker behind this widely publicized incident, dubbed operation “LeakTheAnalyst,” first started posting evidence on July 31 of breached email and social media accounts belonging to a single analyst who worked for Mandiant, a FireEye subsidiary. FireEye posted earnings for their second fiscal quarter the next day. The hacker’s first message included a cache of documents, […]

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As Trump promises ‘fire and fury,’ North Korean hackers target U.S. defense contractors

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Hackers linked to a North Korean cyber espionage group — best known for a global ransomware attack dubbed “WannaCry” — are now actively targeting U.S. defense contractors as part of an apparent, ongoing intelligence gathering operation, according to new research published by U.S. cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks. The findings come at time of heightened tension between the U.S. and North Korea while the leaders of each nation have exchanged threats of nuclear warfare. North Korea is a known and well-established adversary of the U.S. in cyberspace. The group responsible for both WannaCry and this newly uncovered intelligence operation is codenamed Lazarus Group by the security research community. Analysts with Palo Alto Network’s Unit 42 found that Lazarus Group recently sent a barrage of spear phishing emails with booby-trapped Microsoft Word attachments to several individuals involved with different U.S. defense contractors. The hackers did very little to obfuscate their identity; they relied on tools, […]

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ICS-focused cybersecurity startup Dragos raises $10M to protect electric grid

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Critical infrastructure-focused cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc has raised a $10 million Series A funding round from a group of prominent investors in order to expand the company and develop new technologies. Founded by three former U.S. intelligence analysts who previously investigated real world cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, Dragos until recently remained a largely self-funded operation. The fresh funding will allow for the Maryland-based firm to grow from both a workforce and revenue standpoint. The Series A round is led by two traditional venture capital firms, Energy Impact Partners and Allegis Capital, and a Maryland-based startup development studio named DataTribe. Allegis Capital is a major backer of DataTribe, which is designed to help mentor former U.S. intelligence officials to become successful business executives. Energy Impact Partners and Allegis Capital accounted for $8 million of the total $10 million round, while DataTribe offered $1 million. The remaining, roughly $1 million of the […]

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The tech behind the DARPA Grand Challenge winner will now be used by the Pentagon

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After witnessing the raw power of a machine that can fix its own software security flaws at DEF CON 24 more than one year ago, the Pentagon has officially purchased the revolutionary technology from a small, Pittsburgh-based firm. The makers of a supercomputer designed to automatically detect, patch and exploit existing software vulnerabilities were recently awarded a seven-figure contract from the Department of Defense to apply the cutting-edge technology to military systems, including U.S. Navy ships and aircraft. The Pentagon’s startup-centric office, named the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), is currently overseeing the venture. The two-year contract is part of a program dubbed “Voltron,” which will offer the technology to a variety of different defense agencies in an effort to find coding flaws in both operating systems and custom programs used by the U.S. military. Voltron represents a multi-contract effort — which includes but is not limited to the aforementioned […]

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DNC hackers are using leaked NSA tools to spy on hotel guests across Europe

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A group of Russian hackers best known for breaking into the Democratic National Committee have been using a leaked NSA espionage tool to target hotels across Europe in an apparent attempt to spy on specific guests, according to new research published by cybersecurity firm FireEye. The research underscores how cyber-espionage outfits backed by nation-states are readily leveraging a cache of NSA hacking tools that were leaked over the last year by a mysterious group named The Shadow Brokers. The U.S. government is currently engaged in an extensive counterintelligence investigation to identify who is behind The Shadow Brokers, CyberScoop first reported, with the recent focus pointed at a former U.S. intelligence community insider. Computer networks of at least seven hotels across Europe and one in the Middle East were infected with malware used by the Russian hackers, codenamed APT28 or Fancy Bear by security researchers. “FireEye has moderate confidence that a campaign targeting […]

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PR fight ensues after claims of leaked Carbon Black data

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Two well-funded cybersecurity firms jumped into a public relations fight Wednesday after one alleged that the other had allowed third parties to profit off leaked sensitive customer data. Direct Defense President Jim Broome wrote in a blog post published Wednesday that his firm had found evidence of improper conduct on the part of Carbon Black, a seller of endpoint security software products. Direct Defense, a managed and full service provider of security offerings, said it found an apparent flaw in the architecture of a popular Carbon Black product named Cb Response. This flaw allegedly allowed for a leak of sensitive customer information onto multi-scanning services like VirusTotal, a popular malware repository. The inadvertently leaked data, according to Broome, could be resold by third parties. “Files uploaded by Cb Response customers first go to Carbon Black (or their local Carbon Black server instance), but then are immediately forwarded to a cloud-based […]

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Hutchins arrest stokes fears among those sharing sensitive threat intel

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The arrest of security researcher Marcus Hutchins is troubling members of multiple threat information sharing groups who once counted Hutchins as an ally, but now worry that he could have recorded and shared their sensitive work. CyberScoop viewed several conversations among threat intel groups, which played out in closed chatrooms and email threads. The concern voiced by members of several groups is that Hutchins — who was arrested by the FBI last week and charged with allegedly creating a banking trojan that was sold on dark web marketplace AlphaBay — could have sent sensitive information from the groups to people associated with the cybercrime underground. “This is bad. We need to assume for the period he was among us, any and all traffic was compromised and could be, along with our names etc. in the hands of various adversaries,” one member wrote in an email. Additionally, the communications include the […]

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Russians can hijack satellites in order to launch cyberattacks, documents show

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Russian intelligence services have been capable of hijacking satellite signals to launch stealthy cyberattacks since at least 2013, according to a newly published cache of classified documents belonging to Canada’s Communications Security Establishment and obtained by The Intercept. Because the innovative hacking technique is believed to be limited to a small number of operators, the revelation highlights the Kremlin’s longstanding effort to develop highly sophisticated cyber espionage capabilities on par with other world powers. The Intercept shared these sensitive documents in a story Wednesday, which sought to disprove U.S. President Donald Trump’s assertion that Russian hackers are so skilled that they cannot be tracked or accurately attributed — an opinion that was also recently voiced by Russian President Vladimir Putin. In part, The Intercept’s story underlines how a series of simplistic but critical operational security mistakes by a skilled hacking group, codenamed MakersMark or Turla, eventually allowed Canadian intelligence officials […]

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New FBI Director will build on Comey’s cybercrime fighting efforts

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With Christopher Wray being sworn into his new position, the immediate question facing the FBI director is whether he will follow the path created by his predecessor or forge a new one by implementing drastically different initiatives. Associates of Wray who spoke to him in recent weeks say they expect him to build on many of the same priorities that James Comey was known for, including efforts to strengthen the FBI’s cybercrime fighting mission. “I think what you’ll see, and this will play out eventually in [Appropriations committees] too, is that Chris understands that [cybersecurity] is important and that it’s part of everything,” said Joe Whitley, a former senior Justice Department official. “Chris I think respects and admires a lot of what [Comey] did, especially with him building up the FBI’s Cybercrime Division. He’ll build on that.” Whitley doesn’t expect Wray to take the bureau in a drastically different direction […]

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