Threat migration.
The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement officials.
The FBI warning, contained in a “flash” alert from the FBI’s Cyber Division, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo News, comes amid heightened concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about the possibility of cyberintrusions, potentially by Russian state-sponsored hackers, aimed at disrupting the November elections.
Those concerns prompted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to convene a conference call with state election officials on Aug. 15, in which he offered his department’s help to make state voting systems more secure, including providing federal cybersecurity experts to scan for vulnerabilities, according to a “readout” of the call released by the department.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fbi-says-...000000175.html
A scrimmage in a Border Station
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail
http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg
Prior to the last election ethnical hackers demoed just how easy it was to hack both the voting machines as well as the counting process and change the election results...not much has been done since then about this somewhat serious problem when facing now a very aggressive state sponsored set of hackers......Originally Posted by AdamG
Voter database hack may be 'precursor' to larger attack. Find out more:
http://reut.rs/2c0mJsd
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-29-2016 at 06:45 PM.
Hackers can take over an entire network with this tiny $35 box
http://read.bi/2bUXB7X
Russia-Backed DNC Hackers Strike Washington Think Tanks
http://www.defenseone.com/threats/20...-tanks/131104/ …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-29-2016 at 06:53 PM.
This problem is not so new as some of us old guard types have been pointing out recently that voting machines are no different from what is now being called by the consumer industry "the internet of things" (IOT)....and as the industry pushes this concept into ever more consumer daily products THIS problem of the voting machines is just getting worse by the day...
We detected yesterday a massive Russian botnet pushing spam from a network of "connected smart refrigerators"...ALL "unprotected"...
So exactly how does one now "protect your refrigerator"...how do you install anti viral software onto it, how do you build a firewall around it and how do you upgrade it....to match the new APT threats that are forever evolving faster than we can keep up.....
Let's not even get into the "smart" abilities of new cars these days....imagine a constantly moving botnet pushing a DDoS attack...using VOIP bouncing off every cell tower it passes....now track that botnet???
It is possible and it is now easy to do.....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-30-2016 at 08:17 AM.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/08/i...et/#more-35925
Inside ‘The Attack That Almost Broke the Internet’
th article is good in that it indicates a number of Russian criminal hosting sites and there has been often in the past cooperation between Russian state sponsors and the Russian criminal side to cover their tracks....and or use the criminal side with state sponsor inputs/tools...for the same benefit...hiding the origin of the hacks...In March 2013, a coalition of spammers and spam-friendly hosting firms pooled their resources to launch what would become the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack the Internet had ever witnessed. The assault briefly knocked offline the world’s largest anti-spam organization, and caused a great deal of collateral damage to innocent bystanders in the process. Here’s a never-before-seen look at how that attack unfolded, and a rare glimpse into the shadowy cybercrime forces that orchestrated it.
The following are excerpts taken verbatim from a series of Skype and IRC chat room logs generated by a group of “bullet-proof cybercrime hosts” — so called because they specialized in providing online hosting to a variety of clientele involved in spammy and scammy activities.
Gathered under the banner ‘STOPhaus,’ the group included a ragtag collection of hackers who got together on the 17th of March 2013 to launch what would quickly grow to a 300+Gigabits per second (Gbps) attack on Spamhaus.org, an anti-spam organization that they perceived as a clear and present danger to their spamming operations.
The attack –a stream of some 300 billion bits of data per second — was so large that it briefly knocked offline Cloudflare, a company that specializes in helping organizations stay online in the face of such assaults. Cloudflare dubbed it “The Attack that Almost Broke the Internet.”
Continued...
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-30-2016 at 09:35 AM.
Understanding the complexity of IoT vulnerabilities
Last year, an unknown attacker used a known vulnerability in a popular Web-connected baby monitor to spy on a two-year-old. This eye-opening incident goes to show what a high risk the IoT poses to enterprises and consumers alike. In a more dramatic example, imagine using an IoT device like a simple thermostat to manipulate temperature readings at a nuclear power plant. If attackers compromise the device, the consequences could be devastating. Understanding where vulnerabilities fall on the complexity meter -- and how serious of a threat they pose -- is going to become a huge dilemma. To mitigate the risk, any project involving IoT devices must be designed with security in mind, and incorporate security controls, leveraging a pre-built role-based security model. Because these devices will have hardware, platforms and software that enterprises may never have seen before, the types of vulnerabilities may be unlike anything organizations have dealt with previously. It's critical not to underestimate the elevated risk many IoT devices may pose.This is just the tip of the massive underwater iceberg that is about to hit our standard network security models in the coming years......Security should be considered and implemented in every aspect of IoT to better control the parts and modules of Internet-connected devices. Unfortunately it should be expected that attackers will seek to compromise the supply chain of IoT devices, implanting malicious code and other vulnerabilities to exploit only after the devices have been implemented in an enterprise environment. It may prove necessary to adopt a security paradigm like the Forrester Zero Trust model for IoT devices.
Where possible, enterprises should proactively set the stage by isolating these devices to their own network segment or vLAN. Additionally, technologies such as microkernels or hypervisors can be used with embedded systems to isolate the systems in the event of a security breach.
And believe the Dark Net is full of individuals who are working on this exact same problem...just from the "other side"....
Welcome to the Party, RAND.
http://www.rand.org/blog/2016/09/rus...is-behind.htmlAs Washington investigates alleged Russian hacking of U.S. political systems, Russian propagandists are also at work across a wide front, aiming a firehose of falsehoods at ill-informed audiences, foreign and domestic. A recent RAND study reveals how this disinformation — intentionally false — leverages psychological vulnerabilities to sway audiences. U.S. leaders should raise public consciousness about its nature and dangers.
A scrimmage in a Border Station
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail
http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg
"Top Recipes from the Pro-Kremlin Media
https://www.facebook.com/EUvsDisinfo/videos/1187776884601954/
A scrimmage in a Border Station
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail
http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg
Would love to see some US Ph.D candidate do a thesis study on the similarities between Russian info warfare propaganda tactics and the tactics used by the Republican Party against anyone whom they perceive is against their agenda...
The similarities are not to be overlooked on exactly how close they are to each other.....
Chaffetz was the one leading the charge of "charging Clinton with crimes committed in Benghazi"..and who has been leading the recent charge on the last so called "FBI email scandal"....
Remember when GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz cut embassy security before Benghazi and then bragged about it. Good times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB4duL1xMmY&sns=tw#
IN a total of EIGHT separate Republican led Congressional investigations COSTING the US taxpayer millions of dollars....not a single violation was every proven.....
AT least the Moscow Courts under Putin leadership get a far higher conviction rate for their opponents....
IMHO I really do not believe Americans truly understand Russian info warfare and the use of propaganda...aimed directly at them.....
Russian propaganda functions using the 6D model ....Distort...Deflect....Dismay....Distract.....al l designed to create Doubt and Distrust
And the Republican narrative against Clinton.....recognize any of the 6Ds?????
WHO would have thought for a single moment Russian trolls would be working for the Trump campaign...BUT they are...an estimated 35% of all proTrump tweets are coming from Russian trolls and that "ain't chump change"...
How Macedonia Became A Global Hub For Pro-Trump Misinformation
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman
/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo?utm_term=.iua7Q4JEd#
… via @CraigSilverman @buzzfeednews
HOW many Americans would even think that eastern Ukraine..Syria...and the US elections are even remotely intertwined??????
AND that time honored US democracy concept called "freedom of the press" is again under Russian propaganda.......seen as something "bad"......
IHMO this individual has never served a single day in the US military which serves to protect his right to wear that T-Shirt....under the concept of "freedom of speech" where now over 500,000 alone in Syria have died for that right that was being denied them.....Americans sometimes forget there is another world outside of the US....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 11-07-2016 at 09:21 AM.
Invasion of the troll armies: ‘Social media where the non linear war goes on’
https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...=share_btn_tw#
…
Oops. When your OPSEC fails.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/06/sa...#ixzz4PKasnAiYA Russian sailor’s online selfie may have just given away the position of one of the world’s most powerful battlecruisers, according to journalist#Hans de Vreij’s analysis.
A scrimmage in a Border Station
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail
http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg
New Report from @meduzaproject Lifts Curtain On Russia’s Construction Of Powerful “Cyberarmy”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenk...g62#.rcw4RknPq …
Russian state defence contractor announces new cyber center
http://dlvr.it/McR0M6
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 11-07-2016 at 06:19 PM.
How Russia Is Trying To Destroy Our Democracy With Social Media
Hat tip to WoTR, thanks to a pointer from Clint Watts - one of three authors:Link:http://warontherocks.com/2016/11/tro...our-democracy/Today, two colleagues and I finished more than 30 months of monitoring and research on thousands of social media accounts. We didn’t go looking for Russia online, we were looking at the Islamic State and the Syrian civil war when trolls began attacking us. We watched these attacking accounts and noticed strange use of automation and propaganda linked back to Russia. These armies of social media accounts changed direction through 2014 until roughly one year ago, this social media army took a decisive turn and began promoting Donald Trump.
Our research has led to mapping how Russia is deploying “Active Measures” through social media to divide and conquer the American populace from the inside out. In our article, “Trolling for Trump: How Russia Is Trying To Destroy Our Democracy”, we explain how their influence of Americans works and why this is only the beginning, rather than the end of their campaign. Trump is a tool, not the objective.
davidbfpo
WHO controls Twitter?????
Wow, superb parody ac @Sputnik_intl is suspended by @support while 'verified' Russia propaganda ac @SputnikInt cont's to tweet Moscow's lies
Sputnik International still does not have full control over their hacked Twitter account......
Russian propaganda @SputnikInt slowly regains its @twitter account.
Logo back to normal, still no tweets since 48 hours.
WHO let the Russians vote BTW.......???????
From @GazetaRu live feed. Trump's voting violation hotline. Dial 1 if you're calling from Russia.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-19-2016 at 04:38 PM.
How Macedonian Pro-Trump Spammers Are Using Facebook Groups To Feed You Fake News
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilver...rm=.ikwLD9gZm#
…
RFE/RL & VOA launched an exciting new project: Polygraph. Some serious (and fair) fact checking of the Kremlin
http://bit.ly/2f9d8PX
Seems the US now has a hard time pushing back on fakes news and lies via social media.....
SiliconValley partly resp for #extremism: #Facebook's Fake #News Fight Undercut by Fear of Conservatives
http://gizmodo.com/facebooks-figh
For those SWJ readers that do not fully believe the Russian non linear warfare being directed at the West and especially the US and do not believe that Crimea...eastern Ukraine...Syria and the Us elections are not all intertwined....
Russian non linear warfare has TWO key cornerstones....
1. cyper warfare which we have massively seen in the last year clearly directed at the US and the elections
2. informational warfare with a 1/3rd of all proTrump tweets being generated by a Russian owned Macedonian company
3. and hundreds of fake news sites via Twitter and FB many posted from outside the US.....
Kremlin's #propaganda outlet @RT_com boasts about #Russia's involvement in #USElection2016:
RT headlines....."Hackers and Whistleblowers kill Clinton Campaign...."
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 11-16-2016 at 11:03 AM.
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