Displaying items by tag: Russia

UPDATED 11 February: Ex-NSA hacker and former owner of security company Immunity, Dave Aitel, has launched a fresh salvo of tweets against a book published by New York Times cyber security reporter Nicole Perlroth, after securing and reading a copy of the tome which was published on Tuesday US time.

Global cyber security firm Kaspersky has appointed an insider, Chris Connell, as managing director for its Asia-Pacific operations.

Russian security firm Kaspersky says it has found some similarities in the methods used by the SUNBURST malware, that was used in a supply chain attack on a number of US firms disclosed in December, and long-time attacker, the Turla Group.

The kind of silly claims made by Western news media when it comes to cyber security attacks can be gauged from the latest "exclusive" put out by the British news agency Reuters: a claim that the FBI is investigating a postcard sent to security firm FireEye after it began looking closely at an attack on its own infrastructure.

Breached cyber security company FireEye has explicitly said that the alleged Russian group APT29 is not behind the attack on its own infrastructure and a number of other private and public firms, according to the head of security company Dragos.

Neither American cyber security firm FireEye nor software giant Microsoft, the two companies which carried out an investigation into supply chain attacks on many companies through software made by SolarWinds, have attributed the attacks to any country, least of all Russia, in their reports.

New York-based global minerals-based company Minerals Technologies appears to have been attacked by cyber criminals using the Egregor ransomware that runs only on Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Whenever FireEye, the cyber security firm that just had its crown jewels compromised, publishes a report on some activity by malicious attackers, it always issues a judgment on where they come from – with high confidence most of the time.

Russian security firm Kaspersky is on its Linux propaganda blitz again, this time with a claim that there is a Linux port of a trojan known as RansomEXX. However the company has conspicuously left out one much-needed fact from its post about this malware: the infection vector.

Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei Technologies is planning to put up a plant in Shanghai that would be dedicated to producing semiconductors for its telecommunications infrastructure business.

A man who claims to be a member of the group behind the Windows REvil ransomware says the group takes in more than US$100 million (A$1.4 million) annually through ransom payments.

The defence industry lobby group Australian Strategic Policy Institute has issued a research paper claiming that state-backed actors are launching more and more online attacks and disinformation campaigns to interfere in foreign elections and referendums.

Microsoft president Brad Smith has called for the barrage of cyber attacks on democracies — not other countries which also face the same issue — to be called out and stopped.

The US has charged six Russians, all officers in Unit 74455 of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU, of participating in intrusion of computer systems in a number of countries.

The US Department of Homeland Security issued a warning on Tuesday that Russia may try to "sow discord, distract, shape public sentiment, and undermine trust in Western democratic institutions" in the run-up to the presidential elections which are now four weeks away.

Several companies, including IQVIA, the firm managing AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine trial, and Bristol Myers Squibb, which is leading a group of companies in developing a quick coronavirus test, have been affected by a ransomware attack on Windows systems at Philadelphia firm eResearchTechnology.

China plans to invest up to US$1.4 trillion (A$1.9 trillion) to build up its semiconductor industry so that it can achieve self-sufficiency and not be subject to the kind of sanctions that the US has imposed on Huawei, a report claims.

After what seems like an eternity, a security company has dared to mention the unmentionable: the US does have advanced persistent threats or nation-state attack groups which are active.

Them pesky Russians are up to no good again, trying to hack their way in to steal research about COVID-19 vaccines. The attack appears to have been carried out by a fat man who couldn't be bothered to even hide his IP address, so sophisticated was his approach.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says one of its committees has been tasked with inquiring into the possibility of the country adopting a Magnitsky-style global human rights sanctions regime. This would be a copy of what the US has done.