CloudStrike

The Moral of Sony? Stop Doing Attribution

The hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which first came to light on November 24th, devolved this week into a chaotic international “whodunnit” with conflicting reports attributing the incident to everything from the government of North Korea to the government of China to global hacktivist group Anonymous to disgruntled Sony employees. For sure: those attributing the attack to hacking crews within the military of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) had their argument bolstered by reports in the New York Times and elsewhere claiming that the U.S. government now believes that the DPRK, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, was responsible for the devastating hack. Officials at Sony Pictures Entertainment clearly believe the connection is credible, ordering the cancellation of the release of the Sony Pictures film The Interview following threats of violence on theaters showing the film. That acceded to a key demand of the hackers, who have used the […]

Dusting For Malware’s Bloody Prints

Malicious software is nothing new. Computer viruses and worms have been around for decades, as have most other families of malware like remote access tools (RATs) and key loggers. But all our experience with malware hasn’t made the job of knowing when our organization has been hit by it any easier. In fact, recent news stories about breaches at Home Depot, Target, Staples and other organizations makes it clear that even sophisticated and wealthy corporations can easily overlook both the initial compromise and endemic malware infections – and at great cost. That may be why phrases like “dwell time” or “time to discovery” seem to pop up again and again in discussions of breach response. There’s no longer any shame in getting “popped.” The shame is in not knowing that it happened. Greg Hoglund says he has a fix for that latter problem. His new company, Outlier Security, isn’t “next generation […]