Malware & other nasty IT / cyber things

[OUTLAW 09]

South Korean hosting co. pays $1m ransom to end eight-day outage
Criminals were talked down from 4.4M USDs...


https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/0...a_pays_ransom/

[OUTLAW 09]

Honda halts Japan car plant after WannaCry virus hits computer network
http://reut.rs/2sU6jvK

[flagg]

Nuclear war fears had a public component of "duck and cover".

Cyber war fears should have a public component of "patch and update".

Here in NZ, due to our recent and serious seismic activity, we've had a national resilience campaign for personal preparation in case of a future disaster.

I believe strongly that we are well past the point where we should be conducting national continuous "patch and update" campaigns, to the point of aggressive nudging behaviour in perpetual pursuit of herd device immunity.

"Loose lips sink ships" for the age of interconnectivity.

[flagg]

Quantum entanglement as a means of potential cyber/coms resilience:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ntum-internet/

I knew quantum computing would be an eventual game changer with even recent 1024 bit encryption, but was unaware of quantum entanglement being used as a potential tool to defend against hacking and cracking.

It's way over my head, but Moore's Law continues on its 52 year relentless journey.

[flagg]

A cyber attack the world isn't ready for

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/t...erweapons.html

Wannacry is the focus, but Doublepulsar backdoor may be a bigger threat

[OUTLAW 09]

BTW...while the US Congress approved 200M USDs to fight Russian info warfare BUT US social media FB, Twitter, Instagram and others seem to be unable to control hate, violence and propaganda being posted minute by minute EVEN though they admit they could....

BTW...the Trump government has promised a propaganda pushback but not spent a single cent of the 200M USD...

BTW...the Germans have effectively told the US social media companies to either control what they know they can actually control and if not then 50K Euros per violation.....ACTUALLY not a problem for them to pay the fines as they make billions.....

At least the Germans are doing something compared to the apparent inaction of Trump who has 200M USDs to spend in this effort....

[OUTLAW 09]

Snapchat launches new feature that lets people know where you are at any moment

Not good for your own personal safety....

[OUTLAW 09]

A former employee was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for damaging the IT networks of several water utility providers across the US East Coast.
http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/...ks-hacked.html

Adam Flanagan (42) of Bala Cynwyd, PA was sentenced to#one year and one day in prison by a Pennsylvania court#for#damaging the IT networks of several water utility providers across the US East Coast.
The news was reported by#Bleeping Computer, the man#worked between November 2007 and November 2013 as engineer for an unnamed company that manufactured smart water, electric, and gas readers.
Among the Flanagan’s tasks, there was the set up#of Tower Gateway Basestations (TGB) for the customers, which were mainly water utility networks.
The Tower Gateway Basestations#are essential components for water facility networks composed of smart meters installed at people’s homes that exchange data with water facility operators’ systems.
These networks allow water facility operators to collect consumption#data and check the status of the installs at the customers’ homes.
On November 16, 2013, the company fired#Flanagan for undisclosed reasons, then the man decided to punish the company by shutting down the TGB stations paralyzing the water facility networks of the company customers. Flanagan also changed passwords on some TGBs, using offensive words.
The utility providers had to send out employees at customer homes to collect monthly readings about their consumption.
“According to court documents, the FBI tracked down Flanagan’s actions to six incidents in five cities across the US East Coast: Aliquippa (Pennsylvania), Egg Harbor (New Jersey), Kennebec (Maine), New Kensington (Pennsylvania), and Spotswood (New Jersey).”reported#Catalin Cimpanu#from#Bleepingcomputer.

The investigators were able to identify the former employee as the responsible of the incidents, then the US authorities filed charges on November 22, 2016.#Flanagan faced a maximum sentence of 90 years in prison, plus a $3 million fine. He pleaded guilty on March 7, 2017, before receiving his sentence on June 14, 2017.
Flanagan faced a maximum sentence of 90 years in prison, plus a $3 million fine. He pleaded guilty on March 7, 2017#and on June 14, 2017 he was sentenced to one year in the jail, let me say that judges were clement.