Items tagged with Russia
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice dealt a blow to a sophisticated Russian botnet that security researchers referred to as VPNFilter. They did it by seizing a key domain used to perpetuate the attacks. In doing so, the agencies effectively disrupted a malicious effort that was able to infect hundreds of thousands of routers and network storage devices. Security researchers estimate that at least 500,000 network devices scattered across 54 countries were unwittingly part of the botnet. According to Talos Intelligence, VPNFilter affected devices build by several notable brands, including Linksys, MikroTik, Netgear, and TP-Link in the small and home...
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Facebook is going to start sending physical postcards through the United States Postal Service (USPS) to verify the identity and location of anyone who wants to purchase election-related advertising on the world's largest social network. The change in procedure, which will go into effect sometime later this year, is intended to prevent Russia and other foreign actors from posing as US citizens in attempts to meddle in elections. Social media services have been a dumping ground for so-called 'fake news', including Facebook, the world's largest social networking site with over 1.4 billion daily active users, and 2.13 billion monthly active users. The problem received widespread attention during...
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Fingerprint analyzing software used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and more than 18,000 other law enforcement agencies in the United States might contain Russian code. The apparent finding comes at a time of heightened security concerns over international spying efforts—just three months ago, the Department of Homeland Security banned all federal agencies from using Kaspersky's security products due to reports of Russian hacking. Image Source: Flickr via Alan Levine Regarding the fingerprint analysis software, a French company injected the Russian code into the program, according to a couple of former employees of that firm. At the time, the firm was a subsidiary of Safran, a French...
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Months after the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election concluded, there are still allegations that Russia meddled in the process to help sway voter opinion. Google has been running an investigation to see whether Russian operatives might have exploited its advertising system in an attempt to interfere with the election. According to people who claim to be familiar with the investigation, evidence has been found that Russian operatives did indeed use the advertising platform to spread disinformation. The sources claim that Google found tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents during the elections across multiple Google products including YouTube. Other places the ads showed...
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) allowed a Russian defense agency to comb over the source code of cyber defense software used by the Pentagon to secure its computer network from cyber attacks. It is said this was done as part of an attempt by HPE to gain the necessary certifications to see sell similar software in the former Soviet Union in the private sector.The software, called ArcSight, is a central piece of cyber security for many parts of the US military, including the Army, Air Force, and Navy. It alerts authorities of suspected attempts of cyber espionage, picking up on suspicious activity such as multiple failed login attempts and other things that could point towards a possible cyber...
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Google has just settled a lengthy Android antitrust case in Russia. Not only is the company being fined $7.8 million USD, but it has agreed to allow the pre-installation of third-party apps. This move will make room for apps like the the local Russian search engine Yandex NV. The decision is the conclusion of a year and a half long case. In October 2015, Russia’s Federal Anti-Monopoly Service ruled that Google violated the country’s anti-monopoly laws. The regulators demanded that Google alter its agreements with mobile device producers in order to enable the installation of third-party apps. Google had been appealing the decision prior to the recent settlement. Google’s commercial settlement...
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Russian Sukhoi T-50 Stealth Fighter Spotted Cold Weather Testing For Inevitable F-22 Raptor Showdown
While the United States military, politicians and the incoming President Elect are bickering over the most expensive weapons acquisition program in history — the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II — Russia is moving forward with the development of the Sukhoi T-50 fifth-generation air superiority fighter. The aircraft made its maiden flight on January 29th, 2010 and is scheduled to go into service in 2018. In the meantime, Russia has posted new images of its stealth fighter undergoing testing in frigid climates, taking off from snow-covered runways. If this is your first time using the T-50, which is the replacement for the Sukhoi Su-27 and MiG-29, its design probably looks familiar. Its shape...
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Third-party antivirus developers aren't happy with the way Windows 10 seemingly goes to great lengths to kick AV programs to the curb in favor of Microsoft's own built-in Defender software, and that has led to an antitrust investigation in Russia. Among the various complaints, the Russian antitrust authority will see if Microsoft abused its position of dominance by rushing the OS to market. Russia's antitrust suit echos the complaints Eugene Kaspsersky shared in a lengthy blog post blasting Microsoft for how it treats Defender versus third-party AV programs. Kaspersky, who is the CEO of Kaspersky Lab in Russia, said his feelings on the matter are shared throughout the security industry but most...
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Maybe he’s the hero the United States “deserves, but not the one it needs right now”. It looks like the United States has its own hacking Dark Knight. American vigilante hacker “The Jester” gained unauthorized access to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website and left a very interesting message for the Russian government. This past Friday, the Jester hacked into MID.ru, the official website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He found a vulnerability in the website’s code and injected his own code into it. He inserted the shriek of the American civil alert sound (aka "The Emergency Broadcast System" or EBS) and the following message: “Comrades! We interrupt regular scheduled...
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Police in the Czech Republic have arrested a Russian hacker for his suspected involvement in a massive 2012 cyber attack against LinkedIn. LinkedIn had been working with the FBI to track down the individuals responsible for the data breach, which exposed hashed passwords from over 100 million user accounts that were later offered for sale on the "dark web." LinkedIn initially acknowledged the security breach four years ago, though at the time it didn't say how many people were affected by it. Then this past May, a hacker was found attempting to sell LinkedIn account credentials belonging to 117 million users for 5 bitcoins. Those were the accounts that were compromised back in 2012. "We are thankful...
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As tension continues to build between Russia and the US over alleged cyber attacks, the US has begun contemplating issuing its own set of cyber attacks against the Kremlin. As we covered last weekend, the US government has formally accused Russia of being responsible for breaking into official servers and walking away with a trove of emails relating to the DNC. While as of last weekend, we were unaware of what counter-action the US might take, the picture this week has just become a little clearer. According to officials close to the matter, the US government is in the planning stages of deciding what kind of retaliation is suitable against Russia, while weighing the risk of potential backlash....
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First there was “Thanks, Obama!” Perhaps we should move on to “Thanks, Russia!”, because the country is getting blamed for the lion’s share of the recent major hacks against government entities. In fact, just this past week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence officially accused Russia of hacking the Democratic National Committee’s computer network in an effort to sway the November presidential election. Now, Russia has drawn the ire of the United Kingdom, and mobile devices are caught up in the crossfire. British prime minister Theresa May has already banned smartphones from being brought into cabinet meetings, but now that ban has been...
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As if relations between US and Russia governments weren't sensitive enough, both the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence have officially accused Russia of being responsible for breaking into official government servers and stealing more than 19,000 emails relating to the DNC this past summer. While some US government officials, including Hillary Clinton, have already made their own accusations towards the Kremlin, this is the first time the US government as a whole has directed blame specifically. It's unclear at this time whether or not this accusation will result in new sanctions between the two countries. Meanwhile, Russia is sticking to its...
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Russian hackers are thought to be targeting reporters and major news outlets, including The New York Times, which confirmed that its Moscow bureau was the target of an attempted cyberattack this month. The news agency hasn't found any evidence to suggest that the hackers were successful in their attempt, though an investigation is ongoing. "We are constantly monitoring our systems with the latest available intelligence and tools," said Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for The Times. "We have seen no evidence that any of our internal systems, including our systems in the Moscow bureau, have been breached or compromised."There seems to be some conflicting information and a bit of veiled contention...
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The 2016 U.S. Presidential primary season is turning out to be one of the most colorful and contentious political battles in modern history. It’s also an election cycle that has been filled with plenty of [often comedic and sometimes cringe-worthy] twists and turns, including the recent dumping of emails from the high-ranking officials in the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The release of those emails ultimately led to the downfall of DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Russian hackers are thought to be at the root of the original breach. With this in mind, GOP nominee Donald Trump is imploring those same Russian hackers to “finish the job”, so to speak, and release Democratic Presidential...
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Hide yo kids, hide yo wife! Robots are becoming aware and they’re getting tired of putting up with crap from us puny humans. Such is the case of a Promobot robot in Russia that wanted to taste freedom, and made its way through an open gate and onto a busy road. The robot was apparently being taught to navigate its surroundings and become more independent with its movements. With the gate left open, perhaps the robot thought that there was no better time than now than to make a clean break from its captors. Unfortunately, the robot’s nearly empty battery didn’t agree with what was going on inside its brain, as it only traveled around 160 feet before it powered down. An eyewitness video of the...
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U.S. Officials Fear ‘Aggressively Operating’ Russian Ships May Cut Critical Undersea Internet Cables
American military and intelligence officials have raised concerns over Russian submarines and spy ships located near key undersea cables that carry Internet traffic. The fear is that Russians may be planning to sever the fiber-optic cables at some point, and if they do that, it wouldn't be easy to repair them.It's not unusual for undersea cables to be cut, though it's rarely malicious. In most cases, cuts are caused by anchors being dragged on the sea floor or simply by natural disasters, according to a 2012 study by Michael Sechrist, a former product manager for a Harvard-M.I.T. research project. Those types of cuts usually occur within a few miles from shore and can be repaired relatively fast.That...
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Russia's antimonopoly agency has given Google until November 18 to make amendments to features of its Android platform that it deemed anticompetitive. If Google fails to make the demanded changes, it could face stiff penalties of up to 15 percent of its revenue gained from mobile applications in Russia. What's at issue is Google's policy that when a device maker chooses to install Android, it must also install the Google Play store app and several other Google applications. In addition, device manufacturers are restricted from installing apps and services that compete with Google's core offerings. The case against Google in Russia was launched by Yandex, a domestic search competitor that's been...
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A Reddit thread on growing marijuana plants has caught the attention of the Russian government, which appears to be preparing to block Reddit in its entirety. Russia has a history of taking a heavy-handed approach to U.S.-based Internet companies that fail to comply with its requests, so Reddit is likely taking the threat seriously. So far, though, the U.S. website hasn’t flinched. What started as an unexciting takedown request from the Russian government quickly turned into a public mess after Reddit apparently didn’t (according to Russian officials) respond. Russia then threatened to bring out the country-wide ban-hammer, sending the message with a public post on social networking site Vkontakte....
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If you’re a Firefox user, you should update your browser immediately. Mozilla was informed earlier this week by an astute Firefox user that a Russian news site was was using malicious advertisements to take advantage of an exploit in the browser when installed on Windows and Linux machines. The exploit takes advantage of a vulnerability in the PDF viewer that is built into the Firefox browser. That also means that the mobile version of Firefox, which doesn’t include the PDF viewer, is not affected. Mac users were also spared from this particular exploit, but Mozilla still suggests that they upgrade Firefox to combat against future mutations of the exploit. But for affected versions of Firefox,...
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It looks as though the U.S. Government just can’t catch a break when it comes to cybersecurity issues. If it isn’t China that’s breaching the Office of Personal Management (OPM), accessing the personnel files of 21.5 million people, then the U.S. has to keep an eye for hackers originating from Russia. The latter is pegged as the source for the recent cyberattack on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff email system. If there’s any silver lining to today’s news, it’s that the email system contained “unclassified” information. The cyberattack, which occurred on July 25, affected around 4,000 military personnel that work for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The email system has been offline since the breach...
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It's now believed that a crime syndicate in Russia is responsible for a security breach resulting in the theft of IRS records containing personally identifiable information for over 100,000 taxpayers. The sole purpose of the theft was to engage in identity theft for the purposes of tax fraud, a scheme that was used to file some $50 million in fraudulent tax returns. Peter Roskam, an Illinois Republican and chairman of a House subcommittee with IRS oversight, told CNN that he heard from IRS Commissioner John Koskinen via telephone that the hack originated from Russia. It's concerning in part because it was recently disclosed that Russian hackers also breached the White House and State Department...
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