U.S. Helping Europe Ahead of Elections
According to the Politico, the U.S. intelligence community is working with various governments across Europe to prevent potential cyber interference in their upcoming elections. The U.S. has shared a classified version of their report on what they believe was a Russian effort to help Donald Trump become President. Read More.
Hackers Using Mac Malware to Track Iranian Activists
Suspected Iranian government hackers have apparently developed their own Mac-based malware in response to activists using Apple Mac computers instead of Windows PCs, Motherboard reports. A new report from security researchers details the malware—called MacDownloader— by its creators on a website impersonating US aerospace firm United Technologies Corporation. Read More.
Prosecutors to seek indictment against former NSA contractor
Federal prosecutors in Baltimore are planning to seek an indictment against Harold T. Martin III, a former NSA contractor who is accused of carrying out the biggest theft of classified information in U.S. history, the Washington Post reports. Read More.
InterContinental Hotel Groups admits data breach
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has admitted they were victim to a data breach on Dec. 28, 2016, after an “undisclosed number of clients reported unauthorized fraudulent charges on cards previously used at a number of US hotels,” ZDNet reports. Read More.
Cloud storage new favorite target of phishing attacks
New data from PhishLabs was released in a report on phishing trends that shows cyber criminals are increasingly targeting cloud storage service providers such as Google and Dropbox. Compared to 2013, only around 10 percent of phishing attacks targeted cloud storage services, while in 2016 that number is around 22.5 percent. This means users will likely get more phishing emails this year trying to get them to part with their cloud storage credentials reports Dark Reading. Read More.
Invisible, fileless malware infecting banks globally
Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab is publishing new research on fileless malware, which has infected networks of at least 140 banks and enterprises globally. This malware relies on the same in-memory design to remain nearly invisible, making it hard to spot, according to Ars Technica. Read More.
Rumored EO has section on botnets
While DDoS attacks are quite old, they returned in vengeance in the later half of 2016, highlighted by record-setting attacks on DNS provider, Dyn, in October which took offline websites like Netflix, Twitter, Spotify and Salesforce. Politico reports that the rumored executive order on cybersecurity “directs the Commerce Department to work with companies behind “core communications infrastructure” to identify what actions they can take to better secure their networks. Read More.
