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Clues Point to Long-Duration Hack at Sony

With each passing day, evidence mounts that the attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment was a long-duration hacking event that gave malicious actors extensive access to the company’s network and data. The hack started out looking like a particularly nasty example of hacktivism – with thousands of SPE systems wiped of all data. Going on two weeks after revelations of the hack, however, the incident appears to be something much more dire: a massive breach of corporate security that gave malicious attackers access to gigabytes – and possibly terabytes- of sensitive data. With only a fraction of the allegedly stolen data trove released, the ripple effects of the incident are already washing up against other Sony divisions and firms with direct or indirect ties to the company. The latest developments in the saga include publication of some 40 gigabytes of internal files. As described by buzzfeed.com, the files include: “email exchanges with employees regarding specific […]

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DPRK Mum as Hackers Dump Sony Pictures Data Online

The hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment has taken a turn for the worse, as evidence has turned up that suggests hackers have ransacked the networks of the high-profile studio, dumping everything from unreleased films to detailed business and employee records online. A spokesman for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) did not explicitly deny or take responsibility for the attack when contacted by the BBC, telling the British news agency that “the hostile forces are relating everything to [North Korea]. I kindly advise you to just wait and see.” Sony Pictures’ network was attacked using destructive “wiper” malware last week that stole and exfiltrated data from the company, then erased data on infected PCs and servers. An FBI FLASH alert sent to U.S. firms provided details on the malware, including its use of a hard-coded list of IP addresses and hostnames, and the inclusion of configuration files created on computers […]

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Has the IoT Standards Train Already Left the Station?

The Harvard Business Review has an interesting blog post from last week that looks at the effort to develop standards and promote RFID (Radio Frequency ID), a kind of Ur-technology for our current Internet of Things. Writing on the HBR blog, Thomas Davenport and Sanjay Sarma note that the effort to develop RFID standards, led by MIT’s Auto-ID Labs, provides a possible model for the development of cross-vendor standards for the Internet of Things. However, the authors caution that it may already be too late to achieve consensus on standards to govern Internet of Things communications, given the heavy investment of large and wealthy technology companies in the standards process. One of the most successful elements of the RFID standards effort, which developed and promoted the EPCGlobal standard, was close collaboration between academics, technology vendors and end users.End users of the RFID technology – notably retailer WalMart, Procter & Gamble and […]

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Wellness Apps & Wearables Put You up for Sale | SANS Institute

  The SANS Institute’s Securing the Human blog has a nice, contributed article by Kelli Tarala of Enclave Security on the security and privacy implications of wearable technology. Among Tarala’s conclusions: health and so-called “quantified self” products do much more than gather health data like pulse and blood pressure. Rather: they are omnivores, gobbling up all manner of metadata from users that can be used to buttress health data. That includes who you exercise with, favorite walking- and jogging routes and the times you prefer to work out. Of course, social media activity is also subject to monitoring by these health apps, which often integrate with platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to share workout information. [Read more Security Ledger coverage of wearable technology here.] All of this could spell trouble for consumers. To quote Tarala: “there are companies interested in your Quantified Self, but their goals may not be to health related.” […]

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Top News Sites Hacked, Syrian Electronic Army Claims Responsibility

The hacktivist group the Syrian Electronic Army claimed responsibility yesterday for a series of hacks of high-profile news sites including CBC News and The New York Times. The group, which has targeted western news outlets in prior incidents, claimed responsibility for the attack, in which visitors reported seeing a pop-up message informing visitors of the compromise. Through a Twitter account group claimed to have used the domain Gigya.com, which sells identity management services to corporations. The attackers manipulated Gigya’s account at domain registrar GoDaddy. Gigya’s operations team released a statement Thursday morning saying that it identified an issue with its domain registrar at 6:45 a.m. ET. The breach “resulted in the redirect of the Gigya.com domain for a subset of users,” CBC reported. Read more via Syrian Electronic Army claims hack of news sites, including CBC – Technology & Science – CBC News.

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