The information security industry finds itself, as of this writing, in the midst of a ransomware pandemic. While Business Email Compromise (BEC) likely remains more financially successful overall, much of this success is due to far wider scope and selection of victims. Ransomware, while potentially less costly in a direct Read more
On 09 December 2020, details emerged concerning network infrastructure I’d previously identified as suspicious on 07 December: Further research and investigation showed that the domains in question – which were relocated from “.org” to “.us” infrastructure – were hosting “kill lists” comprising politicians, civil servants, and employees of Dominion Voting Read more
“Energetic Bear” (also known as Dragonfly, Crouching Yeti, etc. etc.) has been in the news lately given a recent series of intrusions targeting local government and critical infrastructure entities in the United States. While the group has gained attention recently, its activities go back at least a decade with the Read more
TrickBot was in the news quite a bit in early October 2020. Starting with reports of TrickBot disruption in late September 2020 subsequently linked to United States Cyber Command (USCC), events ramped up with an independent coordinated infrastructure take-down organized by Microsoft coming shortly thereafter. There are many avenues of Read more
A common social media refrain in technology circles is the complaint of becoming “too political” – that content producers should focus on technical or professional subjects while avoiding charged, politically-tinged areas. This sentiment has always rung somewhat hollow to me as the concept of the political can be viewed as Read more
Several US government agencies shared a warning on 22 September 2020 with respect to foreign entities using disinformation to sow confusion and discord around the US 2020 election. While evaluating this alert, Thomas Rid highlighted two key passages: and: The central thesis of the document and the two highlighted passages Read more
On 16 July 2020, the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), with support and contributions from the Canadian Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and the United State’s National Security Agency (NSA), released a report tying recent intrusions in vaccine research organizations (as well as other industries) to Russian-linked adversary APT29. Read more
2020 has already been a WILD year to say the least – opening with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, proceeding through multiple ecological crisis, and continuing with a historical pandemic (and all its implications for information security), we live in very interesting times indeed. And yet, we’ve only just begun! Read more
My country, the United States, has experienced days of disruption and discord not witnessed since the late 1960s across multiple municipalities and regions. Adequately parsing and analyzing these events, their motivations, and what lasting impacts they may have will be the work for others. Instead, these chaotic events identify a Read more
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread throughout much of the world, I’ve covered how this slowly unfolding catastrophe will impact the business climate of information security, why cost-saving reductions in network defense may be deeply undesirable, and how responses to certain actions in a pandemic landscape will be difficult Read more