Author Archives: Michael Bergin

Dark web intelligence firm Flashpoint raises $28M to expand operations

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New York City-based Flashpoint, an intelligence firm that mines the dark web for information about hackers, today ended a $28 million Series C funding round. A new investor, Georgian Partners, took the lead. Flashpoint executives describe the company’s mission as providing cyber intelligence, referred to as business risk intelligence (BRI), that goes beyond the realm of threat detection and alert notifications. The company sells access to a digital platform that allow customers to assess cyber threats aimed at their organizations. Flashpoint’s new partnership with Georgian Partners, an equity firm focused on software and security ventures, will provide additional resources for the company to expand its product portfolio and other services. “Georgian Partners brings with it not only a significant investment into Flashpoint’s expansion … but a unique expertise in applied analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing, which will help us further mature our offerings,” said Josh Lefkowitz, CEO and […]

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China wants individual access to VPNs cut off by February 2018

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The Chinese government has told telecommunications companies to block individual access to virtual private networks, by Feb. 1 2018, effectively blocking those living within China from accessing online content from outside of the country. China’s state-run firms, including China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom were told by the government to cut off VPN service, according to reporting done by Bloomberg News. This policy falls in line with President Xi Jinping’s concept of cyber sovereignty bolstered earlier this year. Known as “The Great Firewall,” the system suppresses computer privacy through police powers that permit private data collection and surveillance while also blocking various websites and online information. The initiative follows a January pledge from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to crackdown on unauthorized VPNs, but the complicated legal nature of these actions raises questions about how multinationals operating within China will conduct business. According to Bloomberg sources, multinational […]

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Extortion hacks have completely rattled the entertainment industry

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Chris Unthank, the director of digital systems for Larson Studios, was in a panic this past December. The company he works for, a California-based postproduction studio, had apparently been hacked. Files containing the company’s work were being held hostage by a criminal known as TheDarkOverlord. Among the property stolen was 10 episodes of the new season of Netflix’s show “Orange is the New Black.” Unthank found all of the studio’s data stolen and deleted, and the hackers demanded payment via bitcoin in exchange for the data’s safe return. “Once I was able to look at our server, my hands started shaking, and I almost threw up,” Unthank told Variety in an interview. TheDarkOverlord demanded 50 bitcoin, roughly $50,000, to not leak the unaired episodes of the Netflix series. After conferring with federal law enforcement, studio President Rick Larson and his wife and business partner Jill Larson negotiated with hackers and […]

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Bobbie Stempfley will lead Carnegie Mellon CERT

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Veteran federal IT official Roberta G. “Bobbie” Stempfley will take over the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute’s CERT Division, the oldest Computer Emergency Response Team in the world, SEI announced this week. “From my positions in government, I have come to know and respect the work done by the talented cybersecurity professionals at the SEI’s CERT Division,” said Stempfley in a release. “It is now my honor to lead this division, which, for nearly 30 years, has been at the forefront of our nation’s cyber defense. I look forward to working with this team.” Before coming to CERT, Stempfley was director of cyber strategy implementation at non-profit government technology contractor the  MITRE Corp. She previously served as deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary in the Office of Cyber Security and Communications for the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to that, Stempfley worked at the Pentagon as CIO of the Defense Information Systems Agency […]

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