Quick survey of recent cyber news . . .
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Tony Capaccio reported for Bloomberg on a new report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. According to Capaccio, the Commission alleged that “China is ‘the most threatening actor in cyberspace'” and that its hackers use “increasingly advanced types of operations.” Interestingly, the report says that malicious internet traffic decreases nearly 10% during Chinese national holidays and recommends sanctions for companies that “engage in, or otherwise benefit from, industrial espionage.” For what it’s worth, the U.S.-China Commission is often critical of the Chinese.
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Bloomberg’s Jordan Robertson on how a Coca-Cola exec fell for a hacker’s e-mail trick. Unfortunately, said exec fell for a spear-phising e-mail that was clearly fraudulent, allowing a hacker to infiltrate Coca-Cola’s networks. Bloomberg previously ran a great article on the extent of that infiltration and its effects.
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The New York Times’ Robbie Brown on the reverberations from the infiltration of South Carolina’s state computer networks. If you’ve forgotten, a hacker broke into South Carolina’s networks and stole 3.6 million Social Security numbers and 387k credit/debit card numbers. According to Brown, that theft has prompted other states to take a long look at their tax department’s cybersecurity measures.
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Peter Apps, for Reuters, on the cover war that’s going on between Iran and the U.S./Israel. Of course, cyber is a component of that covert war, with the article mentioning U.S. cyber espionage efforts and the DDOS/Shamoon response from Iran.
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Dark Reading’s Kelly Jackson Higgins on how the infamous Gh0st RAT “has been spotted working alongside a new backdoor Trojan that steals Firefox stored passwords and operates in DDoS attacks.”
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Foreign Policy’s John Reed on efforts to deploy the internet in a suitcase, “a software program aimed at giving people in conflict or disaster zones the ability to establish a secure, independent wireless network over their computers and cell phones.”
John Reed, again for Foreign Policy’s Killer Apps blog, on how hackers are taking apart routers, hiding malware, and then tricking IT staff.
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