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Uncle Sam Taking a Back Seat in Cyber Defense | Bloomberg

October 29, 2014 Paul Roberts

Bloomberg has a story on the collaborative, private sector effort to thwart an industrial hacking campaign linked to Chinese intelligence. The effort, which involved firms like FireEye and iSight Partners “demonstrates for the first time a private-sector model that they believe can move faster than investigations by law enforcement agencies,” the report said. From the article: The take-down largely bypassed traditional law enforcement tools, relying instead on cooperation between companies that are normally fierce competitors. Coalition members — which include Microsoft Corp., Cisco Inc. and Symantec Corp. — say they can act faster than governments because they operate global Internet systems and have business relationships with tens of thousands of companies. Read more via China-Linked Hacking Foiled by Private-Sector Sleuthing – Businessweek.

Dusting For Malware’s Bloody Prints

October 25, 2014 Paul Roberts

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 […]

White House Cyber Chief: JP Morgan Underscores Critical Infrastructure Risk

October 9, 2014 Paul Roberts

The White House’s cyber security czar, Michael Daniel, said the Obama Administration is deeply concerned about the reported hack of systems belonging to banking giant JP Morgan Chase & Co. but sees the incident as part of a larger trend of attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure. Asked about the targeted attack against JP Morgan and other banks and financial institutions, Daniel said that the White House was concerned, but not surprised by the incident. “We have watched for several years the trend of malicious actors in cyber try to figure out how to target critical infrastructure,” he said. “Financial services is critical infrastructure.” The White House was concerned that a major U.S. bank would fall victim to hackers, but sees it in the context of a “broad trend,” rather than an isolated incident, he said. Speaking with Michael Farrell, the Cybersecurity Editor at Christian Science Monitor, Daniel hit on many of the now-common talking […]

DARPA Tech Identifies Counterfeit Microelectronics

October 2, 2014 Paul Roberts

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA) announced on Wednesday that advanced software and equipment it developed to spot counterfeit microelectronics in U.S. weapons and cyber security systems has been handed over to military contractors to continue development. DARPA said the product of its Integrity and Reliability of Integrated Circuits (IRIS) program: the Advanced Scanning Optical Microscope (ASOM) technology was transferred to the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) in Crane, Indiana, where it will be used to inspect microelectronics for signs of tampering or compromise. The technology was developed with the help of SRI International, an IRIS contractor. Read more Security Ledger coverage of supply chain risks. “The ASOM technology housed at NSWC Crane will help engineers provide forensic analysis of microelectronics, including integrated circuits (IC) confiscated by law enforcement officials,” DARPA said in a statement. The DoD is a major buyer of integrated circuit chips, which are mainly manufactured outside the U.S. […]

Senate Report Warns of Attacks on Military Transport Contractors

September 18, 2014 Paul Roberts

A Senate Armed Services Committee investigation has found evidence that hackers associated with the Chinese government compromised the computer systems of U.S. Transportation Command contractors at least 20 times in a single year. The attacks pose a serious risk to the system that moves military troops and equipment. The Committee released the report on Wednesday. (PDF copy here.) It presented the results of a year-long investigation of U.S. Transportation Command, or “TRANSCOM,” found a serious gap in awareness and reporting requirements. TRANSCOM was only aware of two of the 20 intrusions, while U.S. Transportation Command remained mostly unaware of the computer compromises of contractors during and after the attacks. “These peacetime intrusions into the networks of key defense contractors are more evidence of China’s aggressive actions in cyberspace,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee’s chairman in a published statement. “Our findings are a warning that we must do much more to protect strategically significant […]