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The scourge of ransomware is the inevitable result of decades of schizophrenia about our relationship with information technology and security. Treating this problem in the same fashion as we have those that came before it will only prolong our suffering. Clarity, creativity, and will are required if we are to have any hope of a…
A recent report has revealed that an Iranian threat actor group dubbed “Agrius” has been operating in Israel since 2020. The group has been linked to cyber espionage activity and has quickly evolved into conducting destructive wiper malware attacks against Israeli targets. What’ more, these attacks have been posing as ransomware attacks in order to…
The technology of ransomware has evolved in sophistication and the business models of the criminal groups behind it have as well. The result: The threat from ransomware has reached pandemic proportions. This post provides an executive level overview of the nature of this threat. This post is part of the OODA Cybersecurity Sensemaking series and…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published expectations for corporate board level oversight of cybersecurity. They advise every member of every board: “Don’t underestimate your role in data security oversight”. This post provides insights for OODA members on what this new guidance may mean for the future of board operations.
The ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline revealed how disruptive this malware can be when it impacts civilian critical infrastructure. The successful shutdown of 5,500 miles of pipeline created concern among gas-strapped populations and a government wondering if this attack was the work of cyber criminals or a foreign adversary looking for retribution.
President Biden declared his support for a cease-fire between Israel and Palestine during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel claims to be targeting Hamas locations and a tunnel network used by the terrorist organization via airstrikes, however, the moves have caused rising civilian casualties as well as power outages and resource shortages.…
Several governments including the United States recognize the criticality of protecting critical infrastructure as a national security priority. But there is little headway in determining what, if any, operations against critical infrastructure are acceptable. Without such consensus, nation states are left to their own devices, opting to use sanctions or retaliatory cyber strikes to register…
One of the critical factors which needs to be evaluated in any technical due diligence is the concept of Technology Debt. This report provides insights into technology debt from the perspective of an enterprise CTO turned due diligence professional. These lessons can help companies preparing for a future transaction to better position themselves for optimal…
In early April 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted the Department of Justice the authority to disrupt the exploitation of Microsoft Exchange server vulnerabilities. This authority empowered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to “hack” into private sector computers without having to notify those organizations. The intent was to…
The business environment in China has changed over the last year. Changes in China’s behaviors include new approaches to diplomacy, new aggressive moves by the Chinese military, new compliance requirements for companies seeking to do business with China, and increased punishment of corporations that are seen to be behaving in ways not supportive of China’s…
Beijing appears to be engaging in political warfare where it is attempting to fester animosity between foreign governments that show favor to Taiwan, a threat to the long-standing policy of “One Country, Two Systems” with regard to the island. In a recent instance, a fake announcement appeared to be from Taiwan’s Presidential Office on Facebook…
Max de Groen is a managing director at Bain Capital Private Equity (one of the world’s leading PE firms with over $130 billion of assets under management), where he focuses on investments in infrastructure, cybersecurity, and application software as well as internet and digital media. This means is is well positioned to help us understand…
On 15 April the Biden Administration formally attributed the Solar Winds attacks to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR. Soon thereafter they issued several directives implementing sanctions against Russia and some Russian related business leaders. The fall out from these actions is still underway and we will continue to track and assess how these matters…
For those of us practitioners in the cybersecurity space who have tracked policy concepts, one that has been around forever is the idea that good guys from government may one day need to take action in privately owned computers. Since the late 1990’s, concepts have been considered like the idea of a self propagating piece…
Beijing’s March 2021 China and Arab States Data Security Agreement is supposed to strengthen cooperation in communications and information technology. While details have yet been published, the document focuses on ensuring the integrity of data and production chains that drive the digital economy. This is not the first time that China and the Arab nations…
In the summer of 2021, during a private moment at the Allen & Co. conference in the Idaho mountains, Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai complimented Mark Zuckerberg on a technological breakthrough by Facebook’s artificial intelligence team. Pichai’s comment was exactly the kind of thing Zuckerberg likes to hear. For one of the most prominent…
A man in the United States who assisted a Nigeria-based criminal organization has been sentenced 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $1.46 million in restitution. The group participated in business email compromise (BEC) fraud schemes and the US man is required to pay restitution for his part in the schemes. Olugbenga Lawal, base…
Somalia’s government is working to rescue the passengers on a United Nations helicopter that was captured by al-Shabab fighters. Military officers have expressed that it will be difficult to access the area where the helicopter crew was taken. The helicopter took off from the city of Beledweyne and landed close to Gadon village in the…
Ukraine and Germany have been accused of crashing an app used in the past weekend’s national election in Bangladesh through a cyberattack. Mohammed Jahangir Alam, official secretary of the Bangladesh Election Commission, did not specify the type of attack or the reason behind it. Alam blamed Ukraine and Germany for the disruption. The Smart Election…
Armed men in military uniforms and black masks boarded an oil tanker near Oman, according to a British maritime security firm and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations authority. Four or five men boarded the Marshall Islands-flagged St Nikolas at about 7:30am on Thursday. The ship was 50 nautical miles east of Sohar in Oman…
Screen displays at the Rafic Hariri International Airport in Lebanon were defaced with messages on January 7th after hackers compromised the displays. The messages criticized Hezbollah and Iran. Multiple flight information displays were defaced with the same message throughout Beirut’s main international airport. The same attack disrupted the smooth operation of the airport’s baggage handling…
The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution calling on Yemen’s Houthis rebel.s to cease its attacks in the Red Sea. The resolution was approved on Wednesday as the United States and Britain have been hinting that military strikes may be their next course of action in the region. The Iran-backed militants have been launching…
Artificial intelligence has progressed from sci-fi fantasy to mainstream reality. AI now powers online tools from search engines to voice assistants and it is used in everything from medical imaging analysis to autonomous vehicles. But the advance of AI will soon collide with another pressing issue: energy consumption. Much like cryptocurrencies today, AI risks becoming a…
ChatGPT developer OpenAI recently acknowledged the necessity of using copyrighted material in the development of AI tools like ChatGPT, The Telegraph reports, saying they would be “impossible” without it. The statement came as part of a submission to the UK’s House of Lords communications and digital select committee inquiry into large language models. AI models…
Walmart has unveiled plans to dive further into the world of artificial intelligence — and drones — to improve its customers’ shopping experiences. In a Tuesday keynote at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, the nation’s largest retailer announced it will be expanding its drone delivery to 1.8 million additional households in the Dallas-Fort…
Artificial intelligence remains one of the buzziest technologies around, and it’s no surprise that it’s been a main attraction at CES 2024. Though AI was mainly represented in chatbots in the past year, companies are now finding more innovative ways to incorporate the technology into hardware, including everything from futuristic robots to laptops to products…
Jesse Lyu, the CEO and founder of an AI startup called Rabbit, says he doesn’t want to replace your smartphone. At least not right away. His company’s new gadget, a $199 standalone AI device called the R1, is so staggeringly ambitious that Lyu seems to think he can’t help but replace your phone at some…
Ecuador has been rocked by a surge in violence and chaos, leading President Daniel Noboa to declare an “armed internal conflict.” The unrest stemmed from the escape of two gang leaders from a prison in Guayaquil, triggering riots in multiple jails and escalating violence across cities. In an alarming incident, armed men invaded a TV…
Gloria Maya Musu-Scott, Liberia’s former chief justice and justice minister, has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her niece, Charloe Musu. The trial revealed that Musu-Scott, along with three other women, inflicted severe injuries on her niece, including stab wounds, resulting in her death. Musu-Scott denied the charge, attributing the death…
The removal of thousands of statues, previously surpassing 40,000, dedicated to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek reflects a changing Taiwan, where Chiang’s once-ubiquitous image is fading. A democratic Taiwan, asserting its identity, contrasts sharply with Chiang’s past rule, symbolizing a test of the island’s identity as it faces China’s claims for “peaceful reunification.” Chiang fled to Taiwan…
The arrest of former Polish interior ministers Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik, convicted for abuse of power during their time leading an anti-corruption office, took place inside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, marking a day of intense political drama. Their refusal to acknowledge the court’s ruling and President Duda’s prior pardon has escalated tensions between…
The Beijing municipal government revealed that experts in China have devised a method to identify users of Apple’s encrypted AirDrop service, allowing access to phone numbers and email accounts. The technique, developed at a justice institute in Beijing, aims to trace anonymous transmissions, aiding in case resolutions and police investigations. While the statement didn’t mention…
The Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant’s investigation revealed a Dutch engineer recruited by the Netherlands’ intelligence services, the AIVD, likely played a role in deploying the Stuxnet malware at an Iranian nuclear facility. Erik van Sabben, recruited by the AIVD, allegedly installed the Stuxnet malware on a water pump at the Natanz nuclear complex. While details…
Kyocera Device Manager, a management tool for Kyocera printers and multifunction devices, was found to have a vulnerability (CVE-2023-50916) allowing attackers to manipulate paths and potentially capture credentials. Trustwave discovered an input validation flaw in a function related to setting database backup locations, enabling attackers to submit a network path under their control. Exploiting this,…
Anecdotes, an enterprise governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) solutions provider, secured $25 million in a Series B funding round led by Glilot Capital Partners, with contributions from Red Dot Capital Partners, Vintage Investment Partners, and Shasta Ventures. This latest investment brings their total funding to $55 million. The funding will aid in product enhancement…
Of the many events that stand out as noteworthy in online discussions across Chinese social media in 2023, it’s perhaps the rise of ChatGPT that will prove to be the most significant. Although the chatbot made by the US-based OpenAI was officially launched in late 2022, it took until 2023 for its unprecedented growth to…
Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar investment in artificial intelligence firm OpenAI could face a full-blown merger investigation in the European Union, EU officials signaled Tuesday. The European Commission, which is the executive arm of the EU, said that it was embarking on a competition investigation looking at the markets for virtual worlds and generative artificial intelligence. As part of its…
Generative AI is reshaping trillion-dollar industries, and NVIDIA, a front-runner in smart robotics, is seizing the moment. Speaking today as part of a special address ahead of CES, NVIDIA Vice President of Robotics and Edge Computing Deepu Talla detailed how NVIDIA and its partners are bringing generative AI and robotics together. It’s a natural fit,…
In a courtroom showdown scheduled to begin in Boston on Tuesday, Alphabet Inc’s Google will defend itself against allegations of patent infringement. What Happened: The trial centers on whether the processors powering Google’s AI technology violate patents held by Massachusetts-based computer scientist Joseph Bates, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Singular Computing, founded by Bates, argues that…
The buzz around artificial intelligence (AI) often teeters between excitement and unease. At the heart of the conversation lies the critical importance of responsible AI adoption. Its implications for people and businesses are immense. Because of its vast capabilities, AI is most often viewed as a force that will allow some to dominate and others…
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) recently charged 19 individuals in connection with the xDedic Marketplace. The multinational dark web operation hosted servers and sold stolen credentials that facilitated over $68 million in fraud. A joint takedown operation seized the domain in 2019. The FBI cooperated with law enforcement agencies from Belgium, Germany, Ukraine, the…
Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs claimed that threat actors associated with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were responsible for stealing over $600 million of cryptocurrency in 2023. The firm also noted that additional operations in December could inflate this figure to over $700 million in stolen funds. DPRK state-sponsored threat actors typically employ social…
Taiwan will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday amid heightened tensions with China. Taiwan has recently accused China of floating spy balloons across the Taiwan Strait, and China threatened to enact new trade measures against Taiwan on Tuesday. Read More: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-ruling-party-candidate-will-maintain-status-quo-engage-with-china-2024-01-09/
Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency on Monday after Ecuador’s most-wanted prisoner Jose Adolfo Macias, the leader of the Los Choneros criminal group, escaped from Guayaquil prison on Sunday. Noboa promised to crack down on soaring levels of violence during his campaign that ended in November, and firmly stated that human…
In response to recent Israeli air strikes and assassinations in Lebanon, Hezbollah fired explosive drones at an Israeli base in Northern Israel on Tuesday morning. Recent Israeli strikes killed deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, and further strikes on Monday killed Wissam Tawil, another Hezbollah commander. Hezbollah’s response marks the first time the group…
Cybersecurity firm Cyfirma recently announced that the self-titled Anonymous Arabic threat actor released a new version of its remote access trojan called Silver RAT. The Syria-based group operates a Telegram channel that sells Facebook and X bots, posts leaked databases, and distributes cracked RATs. Silver RAT is capable of logging keystrokes, destroying system restore points,…
The U.S. embassy in Sarajevo announced that two U.S. F-16 fighter jets flew over Bosnia on Monday to show support for territorial integrity against secessionist Serb activity. Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russian leader of Bosnia’s Serb region, has repeatedly called for it to secede and join Serbia. The flight, conducted as part of bilateral air-to-ground training…
Duth incident response provider Hunt & Hackett accused the Turkey-linked cyberespionage group Sea Turtle of targeting public and private sector organizations in the Netherlands for the past year. Hunt & Hackett reported that the APT actor primarily targeted telecommunications companies and internet service providers, as well as Kurdish and PKK-affiliated websites. The Dutch firm assessed…
At an event in San Francisco in November, Sam Altman, the chief executive of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, was asked what surprises the field would bring in 2024. Online chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT will take “a leap forward that no one expected,” Mr. Altman immediately responded. Sitting beside him, James Manyika, a Google executive, nodded and…
Not long after AMD announced new AI-focused silicon, the company is back with more. AMD finally revealed its Ryzen 8000-series desktop processors at CES 2024, and like the Ryzen 8040 mobile APU series announced in December, these chips are also built to, according to AMD, better handle AI. The highest-specced chip of the bunch is…
Google has released ‘Bard Advanced’, an upgraded version of its ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot counterparts. This enhanced iteration, reportedly fuelled by Gemini Ultra, Google’s cutting-edge large language model (LLM), is poised to usher in a new era of interactive capabilities. The first inklings of ‘Bard Advanced’ emerged when developer Dylan Roussel unveiled its upcoming availability…
Nvidia is planning to launch its new slower artificial intelligence (AI) chip for China in the second quarter of this year, sources say, but recent reports suggest the US chipmaker may be in for a disappointment. Nvidia’s H20 chip is the most powerful of three chips it created for China so as to meet export…
Sriram Raghavan, Vice President, IBM Research AI spoke about ways to use AI to solve for big problems like climate change and predicting extreme weather events, and creating a talent pipeline for AI jobs of the future. AI for weather and climate is one area that IBM is actively exploring. In collaboration with NASA, we…
A mission to put the first commercial craft on the moon has blasted off from the United States. Vulcan, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) rocket carrying a robotic lunar lander, was launched on Monday. The mission is part of an accelerating space race among private companies and would be the first-ever lunar landing by a…
Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, held meetings on Sunday with leaders in Jordan and Qatar aimed at reducing the risk that the war in Gaza could spread in the region. Mr. Blinken met separately in Amman with King Abdullah II and Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, where he thanked the king for…
U.S. Steel is an example of the lost manufacturing muscle that President Biden says his economic policies will bring back to the United States. However, last month, the company announced plans to be acquired by a Japanese competitor. That development has put Mr. Biden in an awkward bind as he tries to balance attempts to revitalize…
With top diplomats touring the Mideast on Sunday in a mission to stop the war from spreading, Israel said the war must not be stopped until they have eliminated Hamas, returned all of their hostages, and ensured that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel. Fears of a wider war have added urgency…
Tens of thousands of public GitHub repositories are vulnerable to malicious code injection via self-hosted GitHub Actions runners, which could lead to high-impact supply chain attacks, security researchers warn. A self-hosted runner attached to a repository can be used by any workflow running in that repository’s context. According to the researcher, an attacker who discovers…
NIST has published a report on adversarial machine learning attacks and mitigations, and cautioned that there is no silver bullet for these types of threats. Adversarial machine learning, or AML, involves extracting information about the characteristics and behavior of a machine learning system, and manipulating inputs in order to obtain a desired outcome. NIST’s report …
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, a law firm that specializes in cyberattacks, disclosed that more than 600,000 individuals were impacted by a data breach that happened in early 2023. The company said attackers had unauthorized access to a portion of its network for a period between February and March 2023. Personal information pertaining to the customers…
The DeepMind robotics team has revealed three new advances that it says will help robots make faster, better, and safer decisions in the wild. One includes a system for gathering training data with a “Robot Constitution” to make sure your robot office assistant can fetch you more printer paper — but without mowing down a…
Over $1.8 billion in digital assets were lost across 751 security incidents in 2023. While the amount is still huge, it is 51% lower than in 2022, when losses to hacks and other incidents reached $3.7 billion. The data comes from blockchain security firm CertiK’s annual report titled “Hack3d: The Web3 Security Report 2023.” On…
Nvidia isn’t the only company that makes AI accelerators for training and inference, it’s a space that Intel is aggressively competing and excelling in too with its Intel Gaudi 2 technology, according to new research. Databricks conducted new research that is being released today, revealing that Intel Gaudi 2 provides strong performance competition against the…
As news publishers ink deals with AI companies to train their models with news stories, the price businesses like OpenAI are willing to pay for copyrighted information is coming to light. The Information reports that OpenAI offers between $1 million and $5 million a year to license copyrighted news articles to train its AI models. That’s…
The White House accused North Korea on Thursday of providing Russia with ballistic missiles that Moscow has begun to fire on targets in Ukraine, and said that in return North Korea was seeking a range of Russian military technologies. The North Korean-produced missiles, with a range of 550 miles, were shipped to Russia in violation…
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has outlined Israel’s plans for the next phase of its assault on the besieged Gaza Strip and future scenarios for the days after the war ends. He said their new combat approach in the northern region of the Gaza strip would include raids, demolishing tunnels, air and ground strikes, and…
North Korea has fired more than 200 rounds of artillery shells into the sea near a tense maritime border and towards two South Korean islands. Seoul has called this “an act of provocation” as it responded with live fire drills. The exchange on Friday led residents of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong – two remote South Korean…
Pakistan’s Senate has passed a non-binding resolution demanding a delay in the national general elections, scheduled on February 8. Independent legislator Dilawar Khan sought to push back the election date due to the “prevailing security conditions” in the country as well as the cold weather. In his resolution, Khan said Pakistan’s interior ministry has “conveyed…
Vigilant Ops, a cybersecurity startup, secured a $2 million seed investment from DataTribe to enhance its software bills of materials (SBOMs) management platform. Founded in 2019, the Pittsburgh-based company specializes in automating the creation and upkeep of certified SBOMs, primarily focusing on regulated sectors like healthcare. Their InSight platform aids in vulnerability monitoring by delivering…
Olusegun Samson Adejorin, a Nigerian national, faces charges in the US for his role in a business email compromise (BEC) scheme involving two charitable organizations. Between June and August 2020, Adejorin allegedly targeted charities in Maryland and New York, obtaining employee credentials, accessing email accounts, and impersonating staff to request fraudulent withdrawals totaling over $7.5…
The US Justice Department recently unveiled charges against 19 individuals involved in operating and utilizing the xDedic cybercrime marketplace, dismantled in 2019. xDedic facilitated the sale of stolen server credentials and personal data, boasting over 700,000 credentials linked to various organizations worldwide. Among those charged were administrators Alexandru Habasescu and Pavlo Kharmanskyi, who received prison…
Security researchers recently delved into SpectralBlur, a new macOS backdoor sharing similarities with the North Korean malware, KandyKorn. Discovered in an August 2023 VirusTotal upload, SpectralBlur wasn’t flagged by antivirus engines until recently. It exhibits classic backdoor functionalities like file manipulation, command execution, and communication with a command-and-control server. This interaction employs encrypted sockets, resembling…
Intel, intent on making bigger moves in the market for AI-powered enterprise software, is spinning out a new platform company with the backing of Boca Raton, Florida–based asset manager and investor DigitalBridge. Called Articul8 AI (an awkward abbreviation of “Articulate AI”), the new entity builds off a proof-of-concept from an Intel collaboration with Boston Consulting…
Startups including the increasingly well-known ElevenLabs have raised millions of dollars to develop their own proprietary algorithms and AI software for making voice clones — audio programs that mimic the voices of users. But along comes a new solution, OpenVoice, developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and…
Imagine what it would be like to have a robot friend that can do things like take selfies, toss a ball, eat popcorn and play air guitar? Well, you might not have to wait too long. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have created a robot that can do all that and more, thanks to…
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