Collaborate Disseminate
The infosec cold war continues to grumble on under the surface. Sources claim the U.S. has implanted malware deep into Russia’s electricity grid.
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The U.S. is beginning use offensive cyber measures in response to commercial espionage, President Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, said Tuesday. “We’re now looking at — beyond the electoral context — a whole range of other activities to prevent this other kind of cyber interference … in the economic space, as well,” Bolton said while speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network annual meeting. The U.S. faces many digital economic threats, including a particularly aggressive salvo from Beijing, which continues to steal intellectual property and conduct other cyber-espionage activities, according to the latest Pentagon assessment on Chinese military operations. The U.S. government traditionally has carried out offensive cyber operations in the electoral context, such as a 2018 Cyber Command operation that interrupted the internet access of a Russian organization that spread political disinformation on social media. Now, according to Bolton, American focus is expanding to deter the theft of IP. “We’re now opening the aperture, […]
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Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of U.S. Cyber Command, has selected the organization’s chief of staff as his top deputy, a decision that coincides with an ongoing effort to fortify digital readiness before the next election. Rear Adm. Ross Myers, who began his role as the command’s chief of staff last May, was confirmed by the Senate last week and is now a Vice Admiral and a three-star Deputy Commander. Nakasone, who is both the commander of Cyber Command and the Director of the National Security Agency, promoted Myers on Memorial Day. Myers has previously served as director of plans and policy at Cyber Command. He also served in several roles for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including as assistant deputy director for Global Operations and executive assistant to vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also is a career naval aviator. The number two position has been open since earlier this year, […]
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The malware sample that U.S. Cyber Command uploaded to VirusTotal last week is still involved in active attacks, multiple security researchers tell CyberScoop. Researchers from Kaspersky Lab and ZoneAlarm, a software security company run by Check Point Technologies, tell CyberScoop they have linked the malware with APT28, the same hacking group that breached the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election cycle. A variant of the malware is being used in ongoing attacks, hitting targets as recently this month. The targets include Central Asian nations, as well as diplomatic and foreign affairs organizations, Kaspersky Lab’s principal security researcher Kurt Baumgartner tells CyberScoop. While ZoneAlarm can’t confirm the targets the attack is focused on, the company detected the specific malware hash in an active attack in the Czech Republic last week, Lotem Finkelsteen, ZoneAlarm’s Threat Intelligence Group Manager, tells CyberScoop. “Although we cannot confirm such an attack, Finkelsteen said, referring to the […]
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U.S. military commanders say that when Cyber Command and the National Security Agency use a capability against targets abroad, they understand it might eventually be used by an adversary. The risk of having the NSA’s tools leaked has been an issue inside the agency for years now — former NSA contractor Edward Snowden brought the issue into the public domain when he revealed a trove of NSA programs in 2013 — but the risk of having adversaries detect, obtain or reverse engineers NSA-used tools has become especially salient in the last week. Researchers from cybersecurity firm Symantec revealed last week that a Chinese-linked hacking group had repurposed tools linked with the NSA as early as March of 2016 and used them to attack various targets around the world. Although Cyber Command’s Director of Capabilities and Resource Integration, Maj. Gen. Karl Gingrich, did not directly address this report, when asked how Cyber Command protects […]
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U.S. Cyber Command is still working overseas with allies to try preventing election interference, Brig. Gen. Timothy Haugh, the commander of Cyber Command’s cyber national mission force said Tuesday. As part of the military’s operation to defend the U.S. midterm elections in 2018, an operation known internally in the Department of Defense as “Synthetic Theology,” Cyber Command deployed cyber warriors to Ukraine, North Macedonia, and Montenegro to help defend those countries’ networks, and to collect intelligence on adversaries. Cyber Command has since “redeployed” out of “some of those” countries, Haugh said during a reporters’ roundtable at the Integrated Cyber Center and Joint Operations Center in Fort Meade, Maryland. Haugh did not specify in which countries Cyber Command has ongoing operations right now in preparation for 2020, but said these kinds of partnership will continue to grow. “When we look to do partnerships overseas … we want to do that anywhere where […]
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The task force the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command created last year to thwart Russian influence and cyberattacks on the U.S. is now permanent, spokespeople from both agencies confirmed to CyberScoop. The “Russia Small Group” — whose existence NSA Director Paul Nakasone announced in July of last year, absent guidance from the White House on how to handle Russian cyberthreats — settles in as the White House, Congress and the Pentagon have taken steps to clarify how and when the military should conduct offensive operations in cyberspace. The NSA would not comment on the number of people on the task force, where it is based, or when the operation became permanent. One intelligence official told CyberScoop the group’s new permanent designation, under routine operations, likely marks a surge of incoming resources, just as in any military surge. “We intend to build on this foundation as we prepare with our interagency partners for a broader challenge in the upcoming […]
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U.S. Cyber Command is shifting the way it measures success from solely military outcomes to how the command enables other government agencies to defend against foreign offensive cyber threats. Brig. Gen. Timothy Haugh, who is in charge of Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force, said on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council that success is “not necessarily [about] the department’s outcome,” but is instead about “how can we enable our international partners [and] our domestic partners in industry to be able to defend those things that are critical to our nation’s success.” Haugh said Cyber Command is doing its job right if agencies are taking their own actions: State Department issuing démarches, Department of Homeland Security releasing alerts, and Treasury Department announcing sanctions “based off of information that is derived from our operations.” In the past, Haugh said he believes that these outcomes may not have been considered as wins. […]
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From power outages to the crippling NotPetya wiper worm, Ukraine has been ground zero for disruptive cyber-operations linked to Russia in recent years. The weeks leading up to Ukraine’s presidential election have only reinforced that narrative. The country’s president accused the Russian government of conducting a denial-of-service attack on the country’s election commission. Only Moscow took issue with that claim. With that context in mind, the eyes of cybersecurity practitioners around the world – from officials in allied governments to security specialists – will be on Kiev on Sunday as millions of Ukrainians go to the polls to pick a president. The Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, has assembled a team of analysts in Ukraine and the U.S. to watch for any signs of foul play on election day. “There is always a strong correlation between malware propagation and geopolitics,” said Kenneth Geers, a senior fellow at the council […]
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As part of its work to protect the 2018 U.S. midterm elections from foreign hackers and trolls, Cyber Command personnel visited Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Ukraine to collaborate on network defense with those allies and study cyberthreats, U.S. officials confirmed to CyberScoop. The trip to Europe demonstrates how the command, which has grown in stature and capability since its 2009 inception, supports and learns from allies facing threats from persistent hackers. “We sent defensive teams… to three different European countries,” Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of Cyber Command, told a House Armed Services subcommittee on Wednesday. Nakasone did not name the countries. But a Cyber Command spokesperson said two of those countries were the Balkan nations of Montenegro and North Macedonia, which until February was known as Macedonia. And a U.S. government official with knowledge of the matter said the third country was Ukraine – something corroborated by a public statement […]
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