Tag: Cyber Espionage

White House

With the approach of the United States’ 2018 midterm elections, concerns have been expressed by many regarding the security and integrity of the voting process.  Given the news how suspected Russian agents actively sought to use hacking and influence operations to sway voters in a particular direction during the presidential election, the concern is legitimate, even if there was no evidence that votes were actually altered in 2016.  The preservation of the democratic voting process has been thrust into symbolic “red line” territory that needs and should be protected against foreign interference.  Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security re-enforced this by elevating election infrastructure to the status of “critical infrastructure” in early 2017.

Clearly, hacking and gaining unauthorized access to those systems and devices associated with the election process is something that deserves immediate attention.  After all, many countries would ostensibly agree that breaking into computers is a criminal offense, regardless if data is taken, destroyed, or altered.  In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, there were clear incidents where suspected Russian hackers stole data, and even compromised voter-related records, resulting an indictment of Russian nationals on a wide variety of charges ranging from conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, and identity theft, to name a few.

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Iran Cyberspace picture

There has been recent focus on alleged Iran cyber activity the past few weeks, spurned on by the publication of a vendor report on Iranian operations.  Per the vendor’s findings, not only was Iran likely behind the activity that was targeting government and private sector in the Middle East, it was implementing National Security Agency exploits that were stolen and dumped into the public domain by the Shadow Brokers group in April 2017.  As recently as late August 2018, Iran is suspected of trying to launch influence operations ahead of the midterm elections.  The conclusion is that Iran is increasingly using asymmetric attacks, particularly via cyberspace, as part of its tool box to conduct retaliatory attacks.

The new reporting comes at a time when Russia’s cyber malfeasance has largely dominated the press, due to its influence operations efforts and election shenanigans, not just in the United States but in other countries as well.  Prior to the Russia focus, North Korea was the focal point with its suspected cyber activities targeting cryptocurrency, and the SWIFT banking transactions before that.  Iran was propelled onto the scene with Operation Ababil

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Baseball player getting to bat

According to 2017 reporting, Major League Baseball believed that the Boston Red Sox, at the time in first place in the American League East, used the Apple Watch to illicitly steal hand signals from opposing teams.  Allegedly, the Apple Watch was used to not only “steal” hand signals from opposing catchers in games using video recording equipment, but transmit the information likely to team trainers.  The theft of such information would help determine the type of pitch that was going to be thrown.  The recording of signals is strictly forbidden by league rules.

When it comes to targeting billion-dollar sports franchises, many would assume that cyber crime would be the foremost cyber actors behind the scenes.  Based on a 2015 report that estimated the professional sports market in North America to have an expected worth of $73.5 billion by 2019, it’s easy to see why.  Indeed, there have been several incidents where cyber crime operations have focused on professional sports teams.  In April 2016, the National Basketball Association Milwaukee Bucks players had their financial documents (player addresses, Social Security Numbers, and compensation) accidentally leaked due to a team employee falling victim to an e-mail scam.  The employee released players’ 2015 IRS W-2 documents to an emailer impersonating the team’s president. Also in 2016, a crippling TeslaCrypt ransomware attack impacted a NASCAR racing team.  An estimated $2 million worth of information was potentially lost prompting payment of the ransom to the criminals.

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Cyber threat

Thus far, there has been no confirmed retaliatory cyber strikes conducted by a victimized government against a suspected aggressor state.  There has been some speculation that after the Sony Pictures attack, the United States “knocked” North Korea off the Internet for a brief period of time, although this has never been corroborated.  Despite being a cyber power, the United States has demonstrated restraint in punishing against those transgressor states it believes to have been orchestrators of cyber attacks against its interests, preferring to level sanctions as a punitive alternative.

The question that governments ask is how to deter hostile acts in cyberspace?  And while an important question to raise, perhaps the reality is that there is no viable answer.  There is a reason why international efforts continually fail when trying to gain consensus on cyber norms, Internet governance, and the legalities and criteria of hacking back – there is lack of a fundamental desire to actually find a solution.  Governments willing to agree to the standards and principles of any of these issues are stating their willingness to abide by them, and while that may fit the current situation, the dynamism of cyberspace has proven unpredictable.  Being cuffed to such an agreement that no longer has relevance while other governments operate without constraints is not an ideal situation.  Therefore, without an agreement in place, the status quo remains.

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Lock and network cable with computer keyboard background

Nowadays the cyber security is essential for individuals, companies, economies, governments and nations as a whole. The reality is that all of them are trying to stay on track against the latest cyberattacks, but there are some countries committing most to cybersecurity.

One of the best ways to determine where most of the cyber attack really come from in real time is by using the map created by Norse.

NORSE Heatmap

(Source:Norse.com)

Another great alternative if you want to find out which are the countries best prepared against cyberattacks is to use the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) created by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).  As described by them it is “…a survey that measures the commitment of Member States to cybersecurity in order to raise awareness.” The GCI covers the five pillars of the ITU Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA): legal, technical, organizational, capacity building and cooperation.

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Russian Flag Hacker

A recent interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed insight into his – and by extension – Russia’s views concerning cyber attacks, and really the cyber domain, as a whole.  Made at a joint press briefing with France’s president, when asked about alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Putin remarked: “Action always causes reaction” and that “If one does not want to get a reaction he does not like, rules for actions need to be set.”  Putin pointed out that in the early days of nuclear weapons, governments had found a way to negotiate guidelines on their use, an effort that should be replicated in today’s political climate.  While not necessarily as catastrophic as nuclear weapons, the potential impact is similar in that the disruption and/or destruction of interconnected information technology can potentially impact millions of people.  The implication is certainly clear: an international understanding needs to be done sooner rather than later.

These public pronouncements of the Russian president are noteworthy as they provide insight into not only how Russia views the activities that transpire in cyberspace but express a potential avenue of engagement for world leaders to approach Russia on these issues.  Cyber norms and discussions of how states have been ongoing in international forums.  The preferred U.S. approach – via the United Nations Group of Experts in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security (GGE) – notably stalled in June 2017, calling into question if this Western-preferred approach to establishing norms will succeed under this umbrella.

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Russian-hacker-group-pokemon-go

The online activities surrounding the 2016 U.S. Presidential election revealed a swath of suspicious postings on social media outlets that ranged from deliberate false information (e.g., one candidate running a child sex ring; another candidate’s followers making anti-Islam chants at a rally) to purchased ads on social media platforms like Facebook (e.g., promoting gay rights, issues related to the African-American community, immigration, to name just a few).  In some instances, candidates were attacked via purchased ads.  While there has been much furor about this, the truth is that this type of online content is nothing that people haven’t already seen.

During any campaign, negative print and media ads are often directed against political opponents, and the Internet is not bereft of millions of users willing to promote their viewpoints or engage in vociferous debate with people holding alternative or opposing viewpoints.  Social media has facilitated the ability for anyone with an Internet connection to express themselves and put forward a message to a widely dispersed audience within a specific geography.  People can either listen, ignore, support, or push back on what’s being transmitted.  The big fear that the mastermind behind all of these ads was intent on swaying constituents to vote for a particular candidate is a concern that has yet to be fully verified.

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According to recent reporting, a suspected nation state hacker group with alleged ties to the Iranian government issued death threats to researchers that had detected their cyber espionage activity.  The researchers were checking a server that they believed to be associated with a specific data breach when they received the message “Stop!!! I Kill You Researcher.”  According to the same report, the server was apparently attached to the attackers’ command-and-control infrastructure.  Active since 2015, the group known as “MuddyWaters” has been observed targeting organizations in Georgia, India, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and the United States.  Recently, MuddyWaters has been observed targeting oil and gas entities in the Middle East.  Notably, the group is believed to employ “false flag” operations – similar to what was believed to have been done during the recent Olympics – in which it adopted some of the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) of suspected Chinese hackers to obfuscate the group’s true identity.

 

On the surface, the threat made against the researchers can be viewed as knee-jerk reaction to being tracked by the private sector.  But this does raise the possibility of what hostile actors may resort to in the future.  The private sector computer security has been aggressively investigating the activities of suspected nation states actors since 2004 when the first report published the activities of a Chinese state entity.  Since that time, several subsequent reports have been provided to the public detailing “advanced persistent threat” operations detailing TTPs and targeting that have ultimately been attributed to specific nation state actors.  While the standard public reaction of these governments has been to refute or deny the claims, citing the difficulties in providing adequate evidence that supports attribution, sanctions and alleged retaliatory strikes have been know to occur as a result of these accusations.

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Russia and China Are Making their Information Security Case

in December 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a new information security doctrine, which updates the older 2000 version. The doctrine, a system of official views on the insurance of the national security of the country in the information sphere, regards the main threats to Russia’s security and national interest from foreign information making its way into the country, and sets priorities for countering them.

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