Tag: geopolitics
China and Iran launch lethal attacks on US infrastructure
The White House has issued an urgent appeal to all US state governors to prepare to cope with their water systems being attacked and taken down by Chinese cyber-attacks. Iran, which has honed its industrial espionage techniques via consistent attacks on Israel’s infrastructure, is also proving effective in taking down water facilities in the US. The letter from the White House contains a stark warning that attacks on US water facilities are no longer a potential threat but an increasingly frequent event with real-world consequences. It was signed by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Jake Sullivan, and by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael S. Regan.
Rise in Tax-Related Phishing Scams Detected – March 22nd
Microsoft's Threat Intelligence arm issued a warning on the rise of new, sophisticated tax phishing scams that could lead to stolen personal and financial data. These tax-related phishing scams are initiated by impersonating trusted employers, tax agencies, and payment processors. Victims click on a malicious attachment, which leads to a believable landing page designed to capture sensitive information.
Chinese ‘Earth Krahang’ Group Compromised 70 Organizations – March 20th
Trend Micro reported on an advanced persistent threat actor linked to the Chinese government called ‘Earth Krahang’, compromising over 70 organizations, with a focus on governments. Focusing on cyber espionage, 'Earth Krahang' and its attacks target government agencies, affecting 48 government organizations across Asia, the Americas, Europe, and Africa.
Google’s Gemini AI Restricted to Answer Global Election Questions – March 13th
Google announced that the Gemini AI chatbot will be restricted to answering any global election-related questions to avoid any potential missteps. Users have found political questions toward Gemini to result in the answer "I'm still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search."
Geopolitical crises fuel cyber-attacks in the US
As geopolitical tensions and conflicts rise across the globe, so are cyber-attacks on critical Western infrastructure, particularly industrial facilities running on operation technology (OT) systems. Ransomware attacks on industrial organizations increased by over 50 percent in 2023, according to a report by cybersecurity firm Dragos: OT Cybersecurity – 2023 in Review. Seventy percent of all ransomware attacks targeted 638 manufacturing entities in 33 unique manufacturing subsectors. Dragos tracked a total of 21 threat groups targeting industrial organizations including three new threat groups: Gananite, Laurionite, and Voltzite. Dragos reports all three new groups as conducting diverse operations against various organizations, including cybersecurity research firms, government and military defense entities, rail, manufacturing, automotive, and utilities. Voltzite has been the most active of the three in targeting critical infrastructure.
Doppleganger mob set to spike US and UK elections
Russian hacktivists named Doppelgänger have been interfering in Germany’s elections with a view to influence the outcome of upcoming European elections, according to a report from SentinelLabs and ClearSky Cyber Security. “Doppelgänger represents an active instrument of information warfare. We anticipate that Doppelgänger’s activities, targeting not only Germany but also other Western countries, will persist and evolve, particularly in light of the major elections scheduled across the EU and the USA in the coming years,” says the report.
FBI declares cyber-war on China
US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Christopher Wray used his keynote speech at the weekend’s Munich Cyber Security Conference, which many regard as the security version of Davos, to effectively declare cyber-war on the People’s Republic of China (PRC). “Our adversaries have been improving exponentially,” warns Wray. “Chief among those adversaries is the Chinese government…the cyber threat posed by the Chinese government is massive.” Wray added that China’s hacking program is larger than that of all the other major world nations combined and that the PRC is using AI technology stolen from the Western powers to vastly increase the present threat. The FBI director told the major world powers assembled in Munich at the weekend that a new enhanced level of cooperation between government agencies such as his and the private sector is the only way to counter this new Red Menace.
Exclusive interview with top military scientist
In an exclusive interview with Cyber Intelligence, top Israeli military scientist Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel reveals that Iran has tested a missile in space that could strike the UK and assesses the likelihood and nature of a full-scale outer-space cyber war and why children should be taught cybersecurity in elementary school.
Corruption allegations overshadow EU cyber rulings
The European Union (EU) has adopted its first Cybersecurity Certificate scheme to boost cybersecurity in products and services sold within the EU states, amid ongoing investigations of alleged corruption in Brussels. The European Cybersecurity Scheme on Common Criteria (EUCC) drafted by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) was adopted on Wednesday as the first scheme within the EU cybersecurity certification framework. ENISA is also already developing two additional cybersecurity certification schemes: EUCS on cloud services and EU5G on 5G security. But the announcement coincided with another press release published by the EU on the same day. On Wednesday, Jan 31st, 2024, the Committee on Civil Liberties also endorsed the draft negotiating mandate for stronger rules against corrupt decision-makers across all levels in the EU. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) amended the draft anti-corruption provisions to cover “any person entrusted with tasks of public interest or in charge of a public service”, with top EU decision-makers, European Commissioners, the President of the European Council and MEPs to be added to the category of “high-level officials” who will now be subjected to more severe rules than in the past.
Iran targets Western journalists
Hackers with close ties to the intelligence arm of Iran’s military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, are now personally targeting journalists, professors, and researchers. According to Microsoft, which detected the new activity, Iran is anxious to gather information on the entire range of Western views regarding the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. “Based on the identities of the targets observed in this campaign and the use of lures related to the Israel-Hamas war, this campaign may be an attempt to gather perspectives on events related to the war from individuals across the ideological spectrum,” says Microsoft. The Iran-backed hackers, known as Mint Sandstorm, a composite name used to describe several subgroups of activity with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, use a range of new techniques. For example, the hackers use legitimate but compromised email accounts to conduct highly planned phishing attacks against key journalists.
Geopolitical tensions fuel botnet boom
Recent weeks have seen an exponential rise in malicious botnets performing reconnaissance scanning to scout out victims. According to researchers at cybersecurity firm Netscout, the number of potentially compromised devices rose from around 10,000 to roughly 144,000 over December, with no sign of the trend letting up. “The trend continued into the new year, with the largest spikes occurring on January 5 and 6, eclipsing one million distinct devices. The levels reached an unprecedented 1,294,416 on the 5th,” reports Netscout. The Netscout researchers say that this increased malicious scanning has been isolated to five key countries: The United States, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Russia. All have seen a rise in attackers using cheap or free cloud and hosting servers to create botnet launch pads.
‘Hacktivists’ target environmental services
Politically-motivated hacking, known as ‘hacktivism’, is now on the rise across large sections of the globe. Politically motivated groups are increasingly attacking their enemies with primitive but effective distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which involve overwhelming the target’s servers with vast volumes of internet traffic. But, according to cybersecurity firm Cloudflare’s DDoS Threat Report, the organizations being targeted most are environmental agencies pursuing green agendas such as Net Zero. While Cloudflare reported an overall increase of 117 percent in DDoS attacks around Black Friday and the holiday season, DDoS attacks on environmental agencies have soared over sixty-thousand-fold over the same period.