Author Archives: Chris Bing

Hoping to fill a global void, private companies push for ‘cyber norms’

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Technology companies are increasingly joining together to develop and promote the adoption of international “norms” and other rules for cyberspace, hoping to fill a void left by governments and international institutions that have failed to act. The latest example of the dynamic came last week when a prominent group of corporations, including Siemens, Airbus and microchip maker DXP, announced a new nine-member cybersecurity charter. The document — essentially a nonbinding agreement to work to improve global cybersecurity — is currently open for other companies to join, one member said. “Cybersecurity is and has to be more than a seatbelt or an airbag here; it’s a factor that’s crucial to the success of the digital economy,” reads a statement on the charter’s website. “People and organizations need to trust that their digital technologies are safe and secure; otherwise they won’t embrace the digital transformation. That’s why we are signing together a Charter of Trust […]

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Atos, IT provider for Winter Olympics, hacked months before Opening Ceremony cyberattack

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Hackers armed with destructive malware appear to have compromised the main IT service provider for the Winter Olympic Games months before last week’s highly publicized cyberattack. Publicly available evidence analyzed by experts and reviewed by CyberScoop suggests that whoever deployed the Olympic Destroyer malware on Feb. 9 likely previously penetrated a series of computer systems in December belonging to Atos, a multinational information technology service provider that is hosting the cloud infrastructure for the Pyeongchang games. The evidence was recently posted to the VirusTotal repository, but information associated with the malware samples carries indications that the hackers were inside Atos systems since at least December. Some of the earliest samples were uploaded by unnamed VirusTotal users geographically located in France, where Atos is headquartered, and Romania, where some members of Atos’ security team work. On Feb. 9, the official Winter Olympics website went down for several hours, causing a disruption to ticket sales and downloads during the […]

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Next NSA director is chosen by Trump

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President Donald Trump plans to nominate the head of Army Cyber Command, Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, to be the next NSA director and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, White House cybersecurity coordinator Rob Joyce announced on Twitter late Tuesday. Nakasone is a respected military professional who has gained a reputation for pioneering the development of the the U.S.’s premier cyberwarfare force. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the first Asian-American to hold the position. NSA Director Mike Rogers is expected to retire this spring. CyberScoop, The Washington Post, Cipher Brief and Politico all reported in recent weeks that Nakasone was the favorite to land the job. If confirmed, he will bring an innate familiarity to the role given his recent work with U.S. Cyber Command, a partner organization to NSA, which is similarly headquartered at Fort Meade military base in Maryland. Cyber Command includes the cyber mission teams of each military service branch, including the […]

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Kaspersky Lab files another lawsuit in wake of NDAA ban

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Kaspersky Lab has upped its legal fight with the U.S. government, filing another lawsuit related to a ban against its products tucked within the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. Based on court documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Russian company says the ban is unconstitutional. Kaspersky’s lawyers say that under the Constitution’s Bill of Attainder Clause, Congress is forbidden “from enacting laws which impose individualized deprivations of life, liberty, and property and inflict punishment on individuals and corporations without a judicial trial.” The 2018 NDAA instituted a government-wide ban on use of Kaspersky products. Signed by President Donald Trump in December, the ban would go into place on Oct. 1, 2o18. “Kaspersky Lab believes that these provisions violate the U.S. Constitution by specifically and unfairly singling out the company for legislative punishment, based on vague and unsubstantiated allegations without any basis in fact,” the […]

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Winter Olympics cyberattacks meant to ‘send a message’

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Security researchers say they’ve uncovered a set of hacking tools that were likely used to target and disrupt the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics over the weekend. On Friday, the official 2018 Winter Olympics website went down for several hours causing a disruption to ticket sales and downloads during the opening ceremony. Localized Wi-Fi networks surrounding the games in South Korea also became temporarily unavailable in the preceding hours. Olympics officials confirmed on Sunday that a cyberattack had hit their systems, but provided few details about the incident. New research published Monday by multiple cybersecurity firms now suggests that a hacking group equipped with “destructive” wiper malware, dubbed “Olympic Destroyer,” may have been behind the disturbance. While various experts have already begun to assess the parties responsible Olympic Destroyer — blaming nondescript hackers linked to either North Korea, China or Russia — the technical evidence to support such a conclusion is sparse. It’s notoriously difficult […]

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U.S. moves to develop grand cybersecurity partnership with Ukraine, a favorite target for Russian hackers

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During a week where multiple senior Ukrainian government officials came to visit Washington, a bill designed to foster further collaboration on cybersecurity efforts between the U.S. and Ukrainian governments passed the House of Representatives late Wednesday night. Known as the “Ukraine Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2017,” the bipartisan legislation was first introduced by Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., in April 2017 just three months after news surfaced that a massive electric power blackout in Kiev had been caused by a complex cyberattack. Cybersecurity experts later attributed the attack to Russian hackers. The bill, which was cosponsored by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., passed with a 404-4 vote. In practice, the bill would encourage greater cooperation between the U.S. and Ukraine regarding several key digital defense priorities, including a promise that the U.S. will support the Ukrainian government when or if requested. The law mandates that this partnership be organized through a Department of […]

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Chris Krebs nominated as next NPPD head

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President Donald Trump has nominated Christopher Krebs as Under Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), a position that oversees a key department office in charge of various national cybersecurity efforts. Krebs’ nomination coincides with the recent passage of an important bill in the House of Representatives — currently under consideration in the Senate —that would reorganize NPPD the “Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency” (CISA). This change, according to senior U.S. officials, could help in recruitment efforts and to clarify the organization’s duties across the federal government; making it clear that CISA is a leading agency when it comes to responding to major cyberattacks affecting the private sector. Currently, NPPD is tasked with coordinating and assisting in the digital defense of critical infrastructure properties, including those tied to the U.S. electrical grid, financial markets and federal election systems. If the new-look office becomes a reality, U.S. officials […]

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Rex Tillerson proposes new ‘cyber bureau’ at the State Department

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has a plan to create a new “cyber bureau” within the State Department that would focus on building relationships with foreign governments to coordinate on international cybersecurity priorities, according to a letter sent Tuesday to the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The proposition first surfaced publicly during a committee hearing Tuesday on the state of U.S. cyber diplomacy. Former State Department Cybersecurity Coordinator Christopher Painter and former Pentagon cybersecurity adviser Michael Sulmeyer criticized Tillerson for shuttering one such office, which Painter previously oversaw, last year during a myriad other cuts. “The Department of State must be organized to lead diplomatic efforts related to all aspects of cyberspace,” says Tillerson’s letter to committee Chairman Edward Royce, R-Calif. Since Tillerson took the helm, the State Department’s cyber diplomacy mission had been consolidated and wrapped into the Bureau of Economic Affairs’ Office of International Communications and Information Policy. The decision was […]

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Booz Allen scores $621M DHS contract for government-wide cybersecurity program

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Multinational consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton has been awarded a six-year, $621 million contract to further develop and implement the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program, a government-wide cybersecurity effort to monitor and protect federal networks. The award is tied to the Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Network Defense (DEFEND) Program, part of CDM Phase 3. Booz Allen was among a small group of contractors also involved in prior stages, providing a total of 13 federal departments and agencies with cybersecurity software that can help spot and mitigate malicious activity. “Our work will expand into new areas of cybersecurity, like incident response and automation,” Marcie Nagel, a Booz Allen principal and leader of the firm’s CDM work, said in a release. “This work aims to help these federal departments and agencies leverage new capabilities that will ultimately empower our clients to defend their networks faster with […]

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It’s super cheap to launch an effective cyber-espionage scheme

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Putting together a thorough cyber-espionage campaign in order to spy on hundreds of people can be surprisingly inexpensive, new research by Citizen Lab explains and private sector cybersecurity experts agree. Over the course of nearly two years, Citizen Lab estimated that a hacking group possibly linked to the Chinese government had spent $1,068 in order to stand up computer systems that were used to target people primarily linked to Tibet; an autonomous territory bordering Nepal and Bhutan that is loosely controlled by the Chinese government. This activity illustrates to some degree how in certain environments, largely because of poor digital security practices, an attacker can run an effective yet rudimentary scheme to collect intelligence from multiple organizations all at once. Experts say that while Citizen Lab’s findings are not unique, it paints a picture of how cheap and scalable hacking techniques — including email phishing and web exploit kits — are part […]

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