Mandiant

Equifax Executives Depart Amid Growing Backlash

In-brief: Equifax said on Friday that its Chief Information Officer and Chief Security Officer had “retired” in the wake of a massive data breach that leaked sensitive on some 143 million people. 

Medical Information on Millions Stolen from Premera Blue Cross

In-brief: Premera Blue Cross said on Tuesday that it was the victim of a sophisticated attack. The hackers had access to Premera’s network for more than six months, stealing information on as many as 11 million members and employees. 

The Deadly Game of Cyber Mis-Attribution | Digital Guardian

In-brief: Tools to attribute cyber attacks are still primitive – leading to potentially damaging mis-identification. (This post first appeared on the Digital Guardian blog.)

From Beijing with Love: Healthcare Firms Confront Foreign Adversaries

In-brief: Reports say that the attack on Anthem health may have roots in China. If so, it would be the latest evidence that sophisticated, overseas hacking crews have turned their attention to healthcare providers. 

Sony: A Game Changer for Cyber Attribution

We’ve been writing a lot about the issue of cyber attribution in recent weeks, following the attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in November. That incident has become something of a Rorschach Test for those in the information security field: revealing as much about the individual attempting to explain the Sony hack as about the attack itself. Rid and a Ph.D student, Ben Buchanan, have authored a paper in the Journal of Strategic Studies. In their paper, Rid and Buchanan note that one of the biggest challenges of cyber attribution: bridging the technical and political or cultural issues that often surround cyber attribution. As Rid notes: the individuals doing the basic forensic work on the incident may not have a grasp of the larger cultural or political issues at play. That’s a dynamic we’ve seen at play (in spades) in recent news about the hack of Sony Pictures. In this podcast, Rid […]