Showing posts with label cybercrime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cybercrime. Show all posts

05 November, 2017

Two popular conservative Twitter personalities were just outed as Russian trolls

I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the months to come.  This was multi-front assault (to several, often contradictory, sides) to provide apparent "support" to people who want to believe, rather than think about, their agenda.  It wasn't always for Trump--although many of his supporters were ideal targets for this sort of thing, and even if there wasn't "collusion" the campaign went out of its way to spread the memes.  Sometimes it went to Bernie believers.  Sometimes it went to NeoNazis.  Often it made its way into more "respectable" (read "gullible") media.  What are we to take away from this?  Don't assume that someone is who they say they are on social media.  Get to know the people you talk to by other means.  Trust people you really know more than people you only "know" on-line, and check where they get their information (repeated, circulated emails are a dead give-away of a manufactured story).  Each of us has access to more information than a major intelligence service could have dreamed of accessing a few decades ago.  Most of it is noise, at best.  Some of it is carefully-designed crap.  Approach everything critically--and that includes, of course, everything you hear from me.  Think for yourself

Two popular conservative Twitter personalities were just outed as Russian trolls

17 July, 2012

Stuxnet and Flame

Depiction of a compartmented "Behind the ...
Depiction of a compartmented "Behind the Green Door" US secure communications center (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Cyberwarfare is getting interesting, and not just because of what it means for "traditional" international relations.  Increasingly, it looks like anyone can run a serious cyber-espionage operation.  How long until these tools are in the hands of more non-state actors?  When do they become a major tool in domestic politics?  IntelNews reviews the situation.  Excerpts:
Stuxnet, which caused unprecedented waves of panic among Iranian cybersecurity experts, was 500 kilobytes in size. Flame is over 20 megabytes in size, consisting of 650,000 lines of code; it is so complex that it is expected to take programming analysts around a decade to fully comprehend. The two are different, of course. Stuxnet was an infrastructure-sabotaging malware, which destroyed hundreds —maybe even thousands—of Iranian nuclear centrifuges. Flame, on the other hand, appears to be an espionage tool: it aims to surreptitiously collect information from infected systems.
Both, of course, were directed against Iran.  But they don't end there.
...there is no little doubt that Flame’s handlers have collected massive amounts of intelligence for at least two years. The program was apparently able to record conversations conducted over Skype; take desktop snapshots every 15 seconds or so; and collect usernames and passwords, among other capabilities. And all that while circumventing even the strongest antivirus software. But there is also the other side of the equation: as in the case of Stuxnet, Flame is now effectively freeware. Anyone can ostensibly access it, copy it, modify it, and re-launch it against his or her target of choice...
Cover of "The Transparent Society: Will T...
Cover via Amazon
Over 100 Israeli systems are already reported to have been infected by Flame, as well as systems in several other countries in the region.  The United States?  I have found no conclusive reports one way or another.  And even then, we'd have to distinguish between government and corporate and other systems.  But the "freeware" aspect intrigues me.  How much trouble would it be for the next PFC Manning to insert a version of Flame into SIPRNet?  Or something more restricted?  I can't help but wonder how many cyberactivsts are pouring over the code.

Are we approaching the land of "No More Secrets"?  Is this The Transparent Society discussed by Brin?  Not really, if only for the reason that those who uncover secrets may not be able to understand what they have, or may choose not to share it with the world.  But it does raise the prospect that while the NSA plugs away at monitoring everything we do, there might be a lot more states and non-state actors doing the same to them.  How will that change the game?

Comment: Who authored computer virus that ‘dwarfs Stuxnet’? « intelNews.org

06 March, 2012

Anonymous strikes again

Anonymous disrupted the website of the Greek Ministry of Justice late last month.

The message, in greek (of course) is supposed to read something like this (and note that I've taken some liberties to make the translation flow better):


Citizens of Greece
     We are Anonymous.
     
We watch every day as your government abolishes the constitution and institutions of the country.
     
We see them leading you closer and closer to poverty.
     
We see them pass laws that deprive you of any right to dignity.
     
We see them deliver the country to the IMF and the bankers.
     
We know about the soup kitchens in schools,
     
for people who are left jobless and now wait in queues for a plate of food.
     
We know that your country voted for ACTA in your effort to silence other Greeks.
     
We know everything ...
     
The Republic in Greece has died.
     
It died with a government that has not been elected by the people.
     
And for this reason the time for discussion came and went.
     
Not negotiating anything with any of those who murdered it.
     
You can hunt as you like, you can even capture some of us,
     But w
hen you attempt to silence us ...
     F
or every one that will you capture 3 others will spring up. Five or ten or a hundred.
     
Now the Greeks are all Anonymous.
     We are millions against you and the 300.  In this war tear gas will not help you.
     To the Occupying Government of Greece
     
These days is going to vote for a bill that will be the last nail in the coffin of Greece.
     
A bill to return the country to a totalitarian rule.
     
To bring the country and its people in absolute poverty.
     
We will not allow more misery to the Greek people.
     
We demand your resignation immediately, and elections.
     
We demand that not a cent be paid to your moneylender 'friends.'
     
We demand the immediate withdrawal of the IMF from Greece.
     
Justice Department, this is only a small sample of what we're capable of doing.
     Y
ou have not seen the full wrath of Anonymous.
     
For each article of a bill that would shame the vote,
     
we will shut down the system and delete the Internal Revenue debts of Greek citizens.
     
Debts which requires them to pay the fascists.
     
The demonstrations of the Greeks have had their encounter with incredible violence,
     
anexelekta hitting, but the internet is our field. And we love this war.

     We are many and we will be swift.
     Citizens of Greece, Anonymous is now fighting on your side ... 
     Government of Greece, let us wait ...

     E X P E C T  U S !
     J U S T I C E  I S  C O M I N G !

The Greek police announced the arrest of three teenagers for the hack.  But the meme goes on--Anonymous has brought down the MoJ website with a DDoS attack, in retribution for the arrests.
In other news, several members of LulzSec, the group that left Anonymous to follow its own agenda--including the recent hack of Stratfor--have been arrested.  It seems that the FBI was able to get one leader to turn on his buddies.  The organization may be crippled.  That is what happens when you start moving from leaderless resistance to a collection of leaders and followers.