Category Archives: U.S. Cyber Command

Army Cyber Command is trying to become an information warfare force

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U.S. Army Cyber Command could soon have a new identity. Commander Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty said this week he wants his military outfit, dedicated to electronic warfare and information operations, to be renamed as the “Army Information Warfare Command.” The rechristening would better represent a new military mission, he said, and come at a time when Army cyber personnel increasingly deal with troll farms on social media, disrupt ISIS operations, and work to confuse international adversaries’ understanding of U.S. military units’ location. “The intent is to provide a proposal that will change us from Army Cyber Command to Army Information Warfare Command because we believe that is a more accurate descriptor of what I am being asked to do on a daily basis,” Fogarty said at the AFCEA TechNet conference in Augusta, Georgia this week. But this change, which Fogarty said he intends to push internally at the Department of Defense over the next two months, is more than just a new […]

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U.S. Cyber Command warns of North Korea-linked Lazarus Group malware

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Malicious software samples uploaded by U.S. Cyber Command to VirusTotal on Wednesday are associated with campaigns from Lazarus Group, an advanced persistent threat group linked with North Korea, two cybersecurity researchers told CyberScoop. Lazarus is an umbrella name that typically describes hacking activity which advances Pyongyang’s interests. The group is especially known for its financial motivations, such as abusing the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) monetary transfer system and for hacking banks, according to Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike. The instance Wednesday marks the second time in as many months Cyber Command added malware details to the VirusTotal security repository as part of an information sharing effort with the private sector. Researchers from cybersecurity firms Symantec and CrowdStrike said they have seen the two malware samples in this case (available here and here) associated with Lazarus Group. The technical capabilities of the malware strains were not immediately clear. The last samples Cyber Command shared were […]

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NSA Director Paul Nakasone had an awkward chat with Ted Koppel

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Well, that was weird. When Gen. Paul Nakasone appeared Tuesday at the International Conference on Cybersecurity at Fordham University, he probably expected to hear questions about the new reorganization at the National Security Agency, or about the U.S. government’s ability to safeguard what’s expected to be one of the most contentious elections in recent memory amid historic levels of foreign meddling. It was not to be. Nakasone spent roughly an hour politely engaging Ted Koppel, the longtime broadcast journalist and author of a 2015 book on cybersecurity, in a bizarre conversation that alternated between Koppel questioning the decorated NSA director about the agency’s basic responsibilities, and whether Nakasone struggled with fake news from “tens of thousands” of “self-appointed journalists.” The “fireside chat” was perhaps the most widely anticipated presentation scheduled at ICCS, a regular gathering of some of the most powerful officials from the U.S. intelligence community. Koppel set the tone for […]

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NSA to establish new Cybersecurity Directorate to boost defense

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The National Security Agency is creating a cybersecurity directorate to better protect the country against cyberthreats from foreign adversaries, an NSA spokesperson told CyberScoop. Anne Neuberger will be the intelligence agency’s first director for cybersecurity, a decision NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone is expected to make public Tuesday in New York City at the International Conference on Cyber Security. The directorate is slated to be operational Oct. 1 of this year, the spokesperson said. The move is intended to allow the NSA  — which is part of the U.S. military — to better provide information gleaned from signals intelligence to agencies and the private sector in order to protect national critical infrastructure, an NSA spokesperson said. “It’s a major organization that unifies our foreign intelligence and our cyberdefense mission, and it’s charged with preventing and eradicating threats to national security systems and the defense industrial base,” the official told CyberScoop. Civilian agencies — such as the Department of […]

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Former NSA contractor sentenced to 9 years for theft of government info

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Former NSA contractor Harold T. Martin was sentenced Friday to 9 years in prison for his role in a massive theft of classified documents. Martin was responsible for one of the largest leaks of U.S government secrets, after it was found that the former NSA contractor possessed up to 50 terabytes of classified government documents he collected over the course of two decades. Judge Richard Bennett’s sentence falls short of the maximum number of years Martin previously face — 10 years for each of the 20 counts against him — for unauthorized and willful retention of national defense information. However, the sentence aligns with the plea agreement his public defenders reached with the U.S. government. The U.S. attorneys said his theft called for “significant” prison time, according to the government’s sentencing memorandum, which CyberScoop obtained. “The exceptionally grave nature and circumstances of the defendant’s criminal conduct call for a significant […]

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U.S. Cyber Command simulated a seaport cyberattack to test digital readiness

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When U.S. Cyber Command simulated a cyberattack against a seaport last month, military personnel hunted for adversaries who appeared to be using malware against a critical trade hub in an updated version of its annual exercises. The annual weeklong test, known as “Cyber Flag,” is meant to help cyber staffers better defend against critical infrastructure cyberattacks, military commanders involved in the exercise told reporters in a briefing Tuesday. By imitating a cyberattack that blocked the seaport’s ability to move cargo, potentially affecting inernational trade, military leaders tested their readiness for a real-world attack, and looked for ways to improve their response. The simulation also included officials from throughout the U.S. government and from allied partners to emphasize stronger coordination. “Cyber Flag is the command’s annual tactical exercise series that features teams working on keyboard against a live opposing force,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger, Cyber Command’s director of exercises and training. “The environment is really […]

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Trump’s Pentagon pick ‘confident’ in 2020 election security

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Defense secretary nominee Mark Esper told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that although there is still work to be done, he is confident in the security of the 2020 presidential elections. “We are more and more confident that the 2020 elections will be unfettered,” Esper said. “But we always will have a lot of work to do because people will always want to influence our elections.” The 2020 elections remain a target of state and non-state cyber actors, a senior intelligence official told reporters last month in a briefing. Esper, who has been serving as secretary of the U.S. Army since 2017, highlighted U.S. Cyber Command’s capabilities while discussing election security. Efforts made in the buildup to the 2018 midterm elections left the U.S. with an improved posture than years prior, he said. Some of the command’s efforts to defend the midterm elections in 2018 included deploying soldiers to […]

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Congressional pressure builds for White House to share classified cyber authorizations

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Almost one year after President Donald Trump issued a classified memorandum that has made it easier for the Pentagon to run offense cyber-operations against U.S. adversaries, lawmakers still haven’t seen the details of the memorandum, and they want the White House to change course. Thursday evening the House of Representatives added a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act that would compel the White House to turn over the memorandum as well as any others relating to the Pentagon’s cyber-operations.  The amendment was part of an “en bloc” package, meaning both sides accepted by voice vote without debate, signaling to the White House just how much interest there is — on both sides of the aisle — in allowing the legislative branch to see the memorandum. Part of the concern is that with increased authorizations to run offensive operations against adversaries, the administration runs the risk of escalating tensions with adversaries in cyberspace without proper Congressional oversight, […]

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Why Cyber Command’s latest warning is a win for the government’s information sharing efforts

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When U.S. Cyber Command warned last week that a hacking group was using a Microsoft Outlook vulnerability previously leveraged by an Iran-linked malware campaign, it appeared to be signaling just how much the military knows about those operations. But the alert was significant in other ways: behind-the-scenes details uncovered by CyberScoop show that it is an example of how the U.S. government has built up its use of the information-sharing platform VirusTotal so the private sector gets more information sooner. Along with Cyber Command’s warning, which also was shared in a tweet, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released its own private warning to industry, CyberScoop has learned. The department’s traffic light protocol (TLP) alert covered the same threat that Cyber Command would eventually post to VirusTotal. In going public with the malicious files, Cyber Command appears to have revealed new information about how Iran-linked actors leveraged another malware family, known as Shamoon, as recently as 2017, according to Chronicle, which owns VirusTotal. Not only is it […]

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U.S. Cyber Has Hacked Iranian Missile C&C, Say Super-Secret Sources

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The U.S. has been hacking Iran. Despite President Trump’s cancellation of a kinetic retaliation, we’re now told of cyber strikes against Persia.
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