Author Archives: Chris Bing

Senators introduce bipartisan bill to improve Internet of Things cybersecurity

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A new bill introduced in the Senate Tuesday by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., would establish a new set of cybersecurity standards for companies that hope to sell so-called “Internet of Things” devices to federal agencies. Inconspicuously named the “Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017,” the legislation mandates that any IoT product sold to the government must be able to receive software patches in case of a discovered vulnerability. In addition, the bill calls for manufacturers to discontinue the practice of hard-coding passwords into the firmware of devices — a process which is already condemned by security experts. Typically, a hard-coded password is hidden from the user and is intended for the manufacturer’s use only. But hackers have taken advantage of hardcoded passwords to break into IoT devices and incorporate them into distributed denial of service attacks. Notably, the bill also encourages curious researchers to […]

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North Korean hackers came close to hacking Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign

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As part of a cyber-espionage operation against Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, North Korean hackers compromised email accounts belonging to individuals involved with an East Asia-focused foreign policy advisory group, multiple people familiar with the incident told CyberScoop.  The North Koreans sought to acquire policy documents and other relevant information that may have affected the regime if Clinton were to become president, the sources said. The advisory group’s job was to craft such policies. The hackers were able to break into the email accounts of employees of at least one prominent D.C.-based think tank; some of which were involved with the East Asia foreign policy advisory group. These individuals occasionally communicated with staff of the Democratic candidate’s official Hillary for America (HFA) campaign, based on an incident response report obtained by CyberScoop and authored by security experts who worked for the presidential campaign. The attackers used their access to apparently draft convincing […]

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The Justice Department wants to help you run a vulnerability disclosure program

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The Justice Department quietly released guidelines last week to help interested parties design their own software vulnerability disclosure programs in a manner that avoids legal issues traditionally caused when a hacker remotely accesses a computer system without prior consent. These vulnerability disclosure programs, typically known as bug bounties, are typically created to allow participating parties to receive confidential information from independent researchers about software and hardware bugs that are affecting a company’s own systems or products. But the practice can sometimes run up against legal complications tied to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, which has been applied in different court cases in a variety of conflicting ways. Critics of CFAA have said the law is often vague and outdated, stunting researchers’ ability to find vulnerabilities without running afoul of the law. In short, the guidance underlines an effort by the federal government to apparently quell concerns held by […]

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Mandiant researcher doxed by hackers; FireEye counters claim that internal info dumped

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A hacker claiming to have compromised cybersecurity firm Mandiant published a trove of leaked emails Sunday apparently connected to a single employee’s personal computer. While the attacker boasted of breaking into the company’s corporate network, the available evidence only suggests that a personal computer, which stored some work documents, was hacked. “It was fun to be inside a giant company named ‘Mandiant’ we enjoyed watching how they try to protect their clients and how their dumb analysts are trying to reverse engineer malwares and stuffs,” the hacker’s message reads. “Now that ‘Mandiant’ knows how deep we breached into its infrastructure its so-called threat analysts are trying to block us. Let’s see how successful they are going to be :D.” In a statement provided to CyberScoop, a spokesperson for Mandiant’s parent company FireEye said: “We are aware of reports that a Mandiant employee’s social media accounts were compromised. We immediately began […]

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Shadow Brokers investigation is focusing on former NSA insider

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The U.S. government’s counter intelligence investigation into the so-called Shadow Brokers group is currently focused on identifying a disgruntled, former U.S. intelligence community insider, multiple people familiar with the matter told CyberScoop. Sources tell CyberScoop that former NSA employees have been contacted by investigators in the probe to discover how a bevy of elite computer hacking tools fell into the Shadow Brokers’ possession. Those sources asked for anonymity due to sensitivity of the investigation. While investigators believe that a former insider is involved, the expansive probe also spans other possibilities, including the threat of a current intelligence community employee being connected to the mysterious group. The investigatory effort is being led by a combination of professionals from the FBI, National Counterintelligence and Security Center, and NSA’s internal policing group known as Q Group. It’s not clear if the former insider was once a contractor or in-house employee of the secretive […]

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Three’s a crowd: Popular bug bounty companies are growing at an insane rate

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Despite three companies all led by ambitious executives competing for the same market share, the nascent bug bounty industry continues to grow at a rapid pace. BugCrowd, HackerOne and Synack are the biggest names in the business, a niche industry that effectively hires and sells the services of freelance hackers who are paid to find weaknesses in clients’ systems or products. All three firms boast platforms that privately funnel information about software and hardware bugs to their customers so that affected parties can fix software flaws. Although each firm follows a slightly different model, they all compete to recruit the best vulnerability researchers and business deals. As the industry continues to gain momentum, it’s becoming more clear who’s winning and what’s working in the marketplace. Over the last year, the three companies have each expanded in size and influence due to private investors betting big. Significant contracts with the Defense […]

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New tool can help prevent government-mandated backdoors in software, Swiss researchers say

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A new framework from a lab in Switzerland could help prevent malware like Petya from spreading, but would also make it difficult — if not impossible — for governments to force software companies to deliver backdoored software updates in secret. The Petya ransomware, and its wiperware variant NotPetya, spread on the wings of a software update unwittingly issued by Ukrainian accounting software company M.E. Doc. An attacker, who many believe to be agents of the Russian government, owned M.E. Doc’s network and injected malicious code into a legitimate software update. This new proof-of-concept technology, dubbed “Chainiac” by the Decentralized/Distributed Systems (DEDIS) lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), offers a decentralized framework that eliminates such single points of failure and enforces transparency, making it possible for security analysts to continuously review updates for potential vulnerabilities. “What Chainiac is trying to do,” Bryan Ford, leader of the group that […]

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Hidden Mac malware designed to spy on ‘everyday people’

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A unique Mac malware family that allows for a hacker to remotely spy on a targeted computer and install additional malicious software has been infecting U.S.-based machines for more than five years, according to Patrick Wardle, director of research with vulnerability testing firm Synack. The actor responsible for the malware, dubbed FruitFly, is believed to be an individual hacker who has over the years continuously updated and improved a distinctive suite of hacking tools tailored for breaking into Apple computers. Based on a forensic analysis of the malware, it’s likely that the hacker is not financially motivated or connected to a foreign intelligence service, said Wardle, a former NSA staffer. “This looks like a single attacker. And based on the malware’s capabilities, it seems like they did some pretty pervasive and intrusive stuff,” Wardle said. “The way the malware works it’s just not very scalable, this isn’t how an APT […]

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A vulnerability in IoT software has opened a door into thousands of internet-connected devices

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Coding flaws evident in a popular open source software library known as gSOAP, which has been adopted in recent years by manufacturers of “smart devices,” could allow a hacker to remotely control and infect internet-connected hardware like security cameras with malware, according to research published Tuesday by IoT-focused cybersecurity firm Senrio. The findings are significant because they highlight a series of vulnerabilities in a common coding framework that is already widely used by technology manufacturers and embedded in deployed devices. The research underscores the security development gap in many Internet of Things devices. Such vulnerabilities already have contributed to the rise of massive botnets that can be used in crippling distributed denial-of-service attacks. In the case of an internet-connected video camera, the bug in gSOAP could be exploited by a hacker to install a backdoor implant, block an admin from making settings changes or to allow access to live video feeds. Senrio chief […]

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Iranian hackers heisted U.S. defense software for clients blocked by sanctions, indictment says

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A group of Iranian hackers broke into multiple U.S. defense contractors between 2007 and 2013 in order to steal intellectual property, software and other proprietary information that they then sold to foreign enterprises and governments, including the Iranian government, according to a newly unsealed indictment by the Department of Justice. The indictment, published Monday, effectively shows how the Iranian government may have been able to circumvent previous export sanctions tied to the sale and purchase of U.S. defense technology by employing a group of contracted freelance hackers who would steal software products through a network of compromised computers based in the United States. The hackers allegedly stole software from Vermont-based engineering consulting and software design company Arrow Tech Associates and sold it to Iranian clients. The product, PRODAS, is a software platform designed for aerodynamics analysis and design for projectiles. It sells for $40,000 to $800,000, and customers receive a dongle to download a software license from […]

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