Russia

Fancy Bear APT

Update: Emboldened, Fancy Bear hacking crew targets French, German Politicians

In-brief: emboldened by media attention for its escapades in the U.S. Presidential election, the hacking crew known as “Fancy Bear” is targeting political parties in France as well as Germany, the firm Trend Micro reported on Tuesday – the latest evidence of meddling in foreign affairs. (Editor’s note: updated to add comment by Michael Sulmeyer, Director of the Cyber Security Project at Harvard University’s Belfer Center. PFR Apr 25 2017.)

When Cybercrooks Chat, Privacy isn’t Everything

In-brief: a survey of cyber criminal groups by Flashpoint revealed that secure messaging apps are becoming more popular, but that security isn’t the only thing motivating online criminals. 

Report: Hacking Crews are all APT now

  In-brief:The tactics of cyber criminal hacking crews are indistinguishable from those of sophisticated, state sponsored “advanced persistent threat” groups, the firm FireEye said in its most recent M-Trends report.

Never Mind! Russian Hackers no longer suspects in Vermont Utility Incident | The Washington Post

In-brief: The Washington Post said on Monday that an investigation of a cyber attack against Burlington Electric in Vermont was not targeted and points away from Russian involvement. 

Don’t Be The DNC: An Introduction to Enterprise Threat Hunting

In-brief: The New York Times expose on the hack of the Democratic National Committee is a case study in how not to respond to a cyber attack. In this video interview with Tim Bandos of Digital Guardian, we talk about how to do it right. His new ebook on hunting digital threats in the enterprise explains that incident response doesn’t have to cost a fortune.