In-brief: An Executive Order signed by President Obama on Wednesday will clear the way for cyber criminals to face the same sanctions as terrorist groups, illegal arms dealers and drug traffickers. One expert called the Order “momentous.”
China
Red Flags Abound in 2013 Anthem Security Audit
In-brief: A 2013 audit of Anthem Inc. contains a number of red flags about the company’s internal information security practices, and suggests Anthem was trying to mislead auditors to avoid scrutiny.
Threats in 2014: Bears and Pandas and Malware – Oh My!
In-brief: a report from the firm CrowdStrike finds sophisticated nation-backed hacking groups were very active in 2014, with attacks on governments, pro-democracy advocates as well as banks and retailers.
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.
N.S.A. Breached North Korean Networks Before Sony Attack – NY Times
The New York Times claims that the U.S. National Security Agency used intelligence gleaned from a clandestine operation to compromise North Korea’s cyber warfare unit to pin the blame for the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack on the reclusive Communist country. According to the story by David Sanger and Martin Fackler, the Obama Administration’s decision to quickly blame the hack on the DPRK grew out of a four year-old National Security Agency (NSA) program that compromise Chinese networks that connect North Korea to the outside world. The classified NSA program eventually placed malware that could track the internal workings of the computers and networks used by the North’s hackers and under the control of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the North Korean intelligence unit, and Bureau 121, the North’s hacking unit, which mostly operates out of China. It has long been recognized that North Korea, which lacks a mature information technology infrastructure, does much of […]
