Author Archives: Greg Otto

Accused ‘Vault 7’ leaker to face new charges

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The Department of Justice is looking to issue new charges against a man who is alleged to have stolen classified data from the Central Intelligence Agency and given it to WikiLeaks. In filings Wednesday in federal court in New York, prosecutors asked to add three charges to Joshua Schulte’s indictment, stemming from alleged new attempts to leak information related to his case. In June, Schulte was charged with leaking a collection of U.S. hacking tools used for global spying. He’s suspected of transmitting the data to WikiLeaks, which then published the information under the name “Vault 7.” He was also charged with possession and transportation of child pornography. In May, prosecutors say Schulte passed classified information related to his case to his family members for purposes of dissemination to other third parties, including the media. After a hearing in which the court told Schulte to stop and that it would enforce rules surrounding the […]

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Bolton confirms offensive cyber-operations conducted to protect midterms

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Days before the midterm elections, the United States is undertaking offensive cyber-operations to protect against foreign interference, White House national security adviser John Bolton said Wednesday. “We are right now undertaking offensive cyber-operations in connection with defending the integrity of our electoral process,” Bolton said at an event hosted by the Alexander Hamilton Society. Bolton said it was “too soon to tell,” whether the offensive was affecting adversary behavior, but added that he expects attackers to realize a distinct uptick from how the previous administration conducted cyber-operations. The operations were first made public and described by a New York Times story last month. According to the story, U.S. Cyber Command operators have sent direct messages to those who are conducting influence campaigns aimed at sowing discord in American society for the midterm elections. The Department of Justice last month charged a Russian national for her alleged role in a Russian conspiracy […]

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Cisco says a flaw in its Adaptive Security Appliance allows remote attacks

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Networking giant Cisco issued an advisory Wednesday that a vulnerability is allowing attackers to run denial-of-service attacks against its Adaptive Security Appliance. The company says it has witnessed the attack being executed in the wild and it does not currently have a patch to fix the issue. The vulnerability affects the appliance’s Session Initiation Protocol inspection engine, along with Cisco’s Firepower Threat Defense FTD software. The flaw could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause an affected device to reload or trigger high CPU usage, which would then cause the denial of service. According to the company’s advisory, there are no software updates or workarounds, but Cisco will be issuing a software patch at a later date. Until a patch is issued, Cisco says customers can disable SIP inspection (it’s turned on by default), or filter traffic that’s using IP address 0.0.0.0 in the “Sent-by-Address” field. Additionally, if security teams have […]

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Here’s why Google is forcing JavaScript use on its sign-on pages

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Google rolled out four new security features for account holders Wednesday, continuing its efforts to give users more autonomy when it comes to protecting their information. Among the changes announced is an automatic risk assessment that will be conducted when a user visits a Google sign-on page. The assessment forces a user to turn on JavaScript, otherwise the sign-on form can’t be accessed. In a blog post, Google Product Manager Jonathan Skelker writes that the vast majority of users already enable JavaScript, but 0.1 percent keep it disabled in order to save bandwidth or reduce page load time. Among the processes that leverage the extra performance are bots, which often use headless browsers. Those browsers — which allow browser code to be run without a graphical user interface — often ignore JavaScript altogether. Additionally, Google is expanding notifications to Android users on what data they are sharing with applications. Previously, Google […]

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Apple’s new security chip kills access to microphone

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The security community isn’t usually one to fawn over Apple’s product rollouts, but the computer giant gave it reason to issue some praise on Tuesday. Apple released more details about its T2 security chip, which handles a number of security processes. The chip houses a device’s Secure Enclave, which protects encryption keys, fingerprint data and secure boot. In a security pamphlet released after Apple’s press event on Tuesday, the company revealed that the chip will completely cut off access to the device’s microphone when the MacBook lid is shut. “This disconnect is implemented in hardware alone, and therefore prevents any software, even with root or kernel privileges in macOS, and even the software on the T2 chip, from engaging the microphone when the lid is closed,” the pamphlet reads. The power cut is only limited to the microphone, and not the camera, since the latter would be useless when a […]

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Yahoo to pay up to $85m to settle data breach lawsuit

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Yahoo, Inc. has agreed to pay up to $85 million, including $50 million for a fund to reimburse consumers’ claims, to settle class action lawsuits tied to the company’s massive data breaches. The settlement, filed in federal court Monday in California, is one of the largest data breach settlements in U.S. history. Yahoo revealed in 2016 that the company had suffered two massive breaches in 2013 and 2014. When one breach was revealed in December, the company stated that over 1 billion user accounts were impacted. The company later revised that number, saying all 3 billion of Yahoo’s users were affected. The other hack, disclosed in September 2016, hit over 500 million users. The company discovered it internally in 2014, but did not disclose the incident for two years. In addition to the fund, the company has agreed to provide credit monitoring and identity theft protection to participants of the suit, as well as up to […]

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Super Micro conducting investigation into Bloomberg claims

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Super Micro Computer says it is conducting an investigation into the claims made in a Bloomberg Businessweek story about its motherboards being compromised while also maintaining its claim that the story is false. In a letter sent to customers last week, executives said the company, also known as Supermicro, is undergoing a “complicated and time-consuming review” to address the claims made in the article. In a cover story published earlier this month, Bloomberg asserts that motherboards made by Supermicro contain malicious microchips that have been inserted during production by agents of the Chinese government. “We trust you appreciate the difficulty of proving that something did not happen, even though the reporters have produced no affected motherboard or any such malicious hardware chip,” the letter, which was part of a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, reads. “I want to assure you that Supermicro’s design, manufacturing and quality processes are designed to […]

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Coats: ODNI has seen ‘no evidence’ of supply chain hack detailed in Bloomberg story

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Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told CyberScoop on Thursday that he’s seen no evidence of Chinese actors tampering with motherboards made by Super Micro Computer, becoming the latest national security official to question a Bloomberg report that stated the company was the victim of a supply chain hack. “We’ve seen no evidence of that, but we’re not taking anything for granted,” Coats told CyberScoop. “We’ve haven’t seen anything, but we’re always watching.” The comments came before a speech Coats delivered at CyberTalks, where the director touched on supply chain threats as one facet the administration is focused on when it comes to cybersecurity threats. “Be aware of supply chain threats,” Coats said in his speech. “Understand that cyberthreats to your supply chain are an insidious problem that can jeopardize the integrity of your products.” The remarks come after a cover story in Bloomberg Businessweek stated that Chinese intelligence agents […]

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Google shuts down Google+ for consumers due to bug found months ago

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Google has decided to shut down consumer use of its Google+ social network after an internal privacy review discovered a flaw that exposed non-public profile data through its API, the company announced Monday. Discovered in March, Google found that a flaw in its Google+ People API exposed data including name, email address, occupation, gender and age. The company said it doesn’t have a concrete number on how many people were affected because the API log data is only kept for two weeks at a time. However, during a two-week testing period before the company closed the bug, profiles of up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were potentially affected, and up to 438 applications may have used the API, Google said. “We found no evidence that any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API, and we found no evidence that any profile data was misused,” a Google blog post reads. Despite finding the bug in […]

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Pacific Northwest burger chain hit by FIN7

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Fast-food chain Burgerville revealed Wednesday that its customers’ credit and debit card information was stolen by the international cybercrime group known as FIN7. The company, which has over 40 locations in Oregon and Washington, said customers that used a credit card at any of its locations between September 2017 and September 2018 should consider their cards compromised. Burgerville says the information taken includes names, card numbers, expiration dates and CVV numbers. “We realize that this intrusion was not only on Burgerville’s system, but also on your life,” Burgerville interim CEO Jill Taylor wrote in a letter to customers. “This isn’t what you expected to happen when you came to visit one of our locations.” The company learned of the intrusion in August when the FBI reached out after it announced the arrest of three men tied to FIN7. In the indictment, the Department of Justice named a number of businesses based […]

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