Author: esimantiras

Child Tweets Gibberish from U.S. Nuke Account

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Child Tweets Gibberish from U.S. Nuke Account

source: threatpost.com

 

Telecommuting social-media manager for the U.S. Strategic Command left the laptop open and unsecured while stepping away.

A nonsense tweet sent out from the official account of U.S. Strategic Command is no reason for alarm, according to the department. The social media manager’s kid found an open laptop, pounded on a few random keys and sent the tweet, which read, “;l;;gmlxzssaw” last Sunday.

The tweets were met with alarm since @USSTRATCOM controls the launch codes for the country’s nuclear arsenal. Mikael Thalen, a reporter with the Daily Dot, decided to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get answers.

“Filed a FOIA request with U.S. Strategic Command to see if I could learn anything about their gibberish tweet yesterday,” Thalen wrote. “Turns out their Twitter manager left his computer unattended, resulting in his ‘very young child’ commandeering the keyboard.”

USSTRATCOM stressed, according to Thalen, the post was not the result of a breach.

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What is an NFT? The Trendy Blockchain Technology Explained

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source: cbsnews.com

What is an NFT? The Trendy Blockchain Technology Explained

n early March, a tech company bought a piece of art worth $95,000. Then the executives lit it on fire. At the end of the spectacle, which was shared live on the internet, the group unveiled a copy of the art, this time in digital form. The creation, by elusive British artist Banksy, was called “Morons (White).”

As for the digital format, it’s getting more hype than the painting and the burning put together. It’s a rising type of technology called a non-fungible token, or NFT. Think of an NFT as a unique proof of ownership over something you can’t usually hold in your hand — a piece of digital art, a digital coupon, maybe a video clip. Like the digital art itself, you can’t really hold an NFT in your hand, either — it’s a one-of-a-kind piece of code, stored and protected on a shared public exchange. 

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Powerful Video and Radar Surveillance Helps Protect United States’ Northern Border

Posted on by esimantiras

Powerful Video and Radar Surveillance Helps Protect United States’ Northern Border

source: ifsecglobal.com

An increasing number of remote video surveillance towers using AI and radar are being deployed to help counter illegal activity on the US-Canada border, as Ron Alalouff reports.

There’s been a great deal of publicity and controversy around the United States’ southern border with Mexico over the past few years – wall or no wall – but far less attention has been paid to its northern border with Canada. Yet an increase in illegal cross-border activities has led to the installation of a series of remote surveillance towers, bristling with powerful cameras and associated hardware.

An example of these remote video surveillance systems (RVSS) is along a 360-mile stretch of border surrounded by vast expanses of water – from Buffalo in New York to Detroit and Port Huron in Michigan – an area awash with thousands of pleasure craft, numerous marinas and hidden canals and channels.

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SolarWinds Hack Obtained Emails of Top U.S. Department of Homeland Security Officials

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image - hacking

SolarWinds Hack Obtained Emails of Top U.S. Department of Homeland Security Officials

source: reuters.com

Hackers suspected of working for Russia got access to an email account belonging to the former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for cybersecurity, in the SolarWinds hack, the Associated Press reported here on Monday.

The AP report said the intelligence value of the hacking of Chad Wolf, the former acting secretary of the DHS, and of email accounts belonging to officials in the department’s cybersecurity staff, was not publicly known.

The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the security breach at SolarWinds Corp which came to light in December, hackers infiltrated the U.S. tech company’s network management software and added code that allowed them to spy on end users. The hackers penetrated nine federal agencies and 100 companies.

Last week, Reuters reported that a planned Biden administration executive order would require many software vendors to notify their federal government customers when the companies have a cybersecurity breach.

 

Young Adults, Seniors Over 75 Most Susceptible to Cyber Fraud: Report

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Young Adults, Seniors Over 75 Most Susceptible to Cyber Fraud: Report

source: technewsworld.com

The most vulnerable cybercrime victims are young adults and adults over 75, according to the latest research revealed in the LexisNexis Risk Solutions biannual Cybercrime Report.

Released Feb. 23, the report tracks global cybercrime activity from July 2020 through December 2020. The report reveals how unprecedented global change in 2020 created new opportunities for cybercriminals around the world, particularly as they targeted new users of online channels.

LexisNexis’ research found a 29 percent growth in global transaction volume compared to the second half of 2019. This growth came in the financial services (29 percent), e-commerce (38 percent) and media (9 percent) sectors. The number of human-initiated attacks dropped in 2020 by roughly 184 million, while the number of bot attacks grew by 100 million.

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Five Months After Takedown Attempt, CISA and FBI Warn of Ongoing TrickBot Attacks

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source: securityweek.com

Five Months After Takedown Attempt, CISA and FBI Warn of Ongoing TrickBot Attacks

Attacks employing the TrickBot malware continue, leveraging phishing emails as the initial infection vector, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warn.

In a joint advisory published on Wednesday, the two agencies revealed that a sophisticated group of cybercrime actors is leveraging a traffic infringement phishing scheme to lure victims into downloading the TrickBot malware.

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Swiss Hacker Indicted After Claiming Credit for Breaching Nissan, Intel

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Swiss Hacker Indicted After Claiming Credit for Breaching Nissan, Intel

image - hacking

source: reuters.com

A Swiss computer hacker who has claimed credit for helping steal or distribute proprietary data from Nissan Motor Co, Intel Corp and most recently security camera startup Verkada was indicted on Thursday, U.S. prosecutors announced.

Till Kottmann, 21, remains in Lucerne and has been notified about the pending charges, the U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle said in a statement.

Kottmann did not immediately respond to a request for comment following the announcement of the indictment, which came after midnight in Lucerne.

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Why ‘Thinking Small’ Is the Way to Stop Ransomware and Other Cyber Attacks

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Why ‘Thinking Small’ Is the Way to Stop Ransomware and Other Cyber Attacks

source: cyberdefensemagazine.com

 

Yuval Baron, CEO at AlgoSec, explains why micro-segmentation is one of the most effective methods to limit the damage of attacks on a network

On August 15, 2020, the cruise line Carnival Corporation fell victim to a cyber-attack that may have resulted in the loss of personal data of millions of passengers and crew members.

Carnival is the world’s largest travel and leisure company with approximately 13 million passengers per year. The company has not revealed how many customers or which of their individual brands were affected but what we do know is that law enforcement agencies were been notified because one of the brands reported a ransomware attack that broke through an encrypted part of their network.

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Chinese Hackers Using Firefox Extension to Spy On Tibetan Organizations

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Chinese Hackers Using Firefox Extension to Spy On Tibetan Organizations 

source: thehackernews.com

“In recent campaigns identified in February 2021, browser extension delivery domains have prompted users to ‘Switch to the Firefox Browser’….”

Cybersecurity researchers today unwrapped a new campaign aimed at spying on vulnerable Tibetan communities globally by deploying a malicious Firefox extension on target systems.

“Threat actors aligned with the Chinese Communist Party’s state interests delivered a customized malicious Mozilla Firefox browser extension that facilitated access and control of users’ Gmail accounts,” Proofpoint said in an analysis.

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Maza Russian Cybercriminal Forum Suffers Data Breach

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Maza Russian Cybercriminal Forum Suffers Data Breach

source: zdnet.com

The Maza cybercriminal forum has reportedly suffered a data breach leading to the leak of user information. 

On March 3, Flashpoint researchers detected the breach on Maza — once known as Mazafaka — which has been online since at least 2003. 

Maza is a closed and heavily-restricted forum for Russian-speaking threat actors. The community has been connected to carding — the trafficking of stolen financial data and payment card information — and the discussion of topics including malware, exploits, spam, money laundering, and more. 

Once the forum was compromised, the attackers who took the forum over posted a warning message claiming “Your data has been leaked / This forum has been hacked.”

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