All posts tagged: cyberattacks

The Dumbest Hack of the Year Exposed a Very Real Problem

The Dumbest Hack of the Year Exposed a Very Real Problem

Published by skeptic

In the wee hours of the night last April, someone stopped at roughly 20 street intersections across Silicon Valley and launched an unprecedented cyberattack that would eventually spread to multiple states, embarrassing local officials and prompting them to question their security practices. Authorities suspect the unknown culprit took advantage of weak and publicly available default passwords to wirelessly upload custom recordings that played whenever a pedestrian pressed a crosswalk button. Instead of the normal recordings telling people to either wait or cross the street, pedestrians heard the spoofed voices of billionaire tech CEOs. A fake Mark Zuckerberg said at one Menlo Park intersection that people would not be able to stop AI from “forcefully” being inserted “into every facet of your conscious experience.” At another, he celebrated “undermining democracy.” At a different intersection, an altered Elon Musk described President Donald Trump as “actually really sweet and tender and loving,” while on a nearby street his faked voice whined about being “so alone.” Government emails and text messages obtained by WIRED through public records requests show …

Iran attempting cyberattacks against critical U.S. infrastructure, officials say

Iran attempting cyberattacks against critical U.S. infrastructure, officials say

Published by Sam Flores

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies are “urgently warning” private-sector companies nationwide that Iranian actors are conducting cyber operations targeting critical U.S. infrastructure, a campaign that has already caused disruptions, according to a government notice. The activity comes as President Trump threatened Iran’s infrastructure, particularly its bridges and power plants. Iran’s attack targeted products by Rockwell Automation’s Allen-Bradley, one of the most widely used industrial automation brands, according to the notice, which was first reported Tuesday by The Times. The advisory said that cyber actors affiliated with Iran were exploiting “programmable logic controllers across U.S. critical infrastructure.” Tehran’s targeting campaigns against U.S. organizations “have recently escalated, likely in response to hostilities between Iran and the United States and Israel,” the notice added. The advisory was issued Tuesday jointly by the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Security Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and Cyber Command. In its own notice, the EPA warned that Iran’s cyberattack had already disrupted “commonly used operational technology at drinking water and wastewater systems,” and that the …

US Takes Down Botnets Used in Record-Breaking Cyberattacks

US Takes Down Botnets Used in Record-Breaking Cyberattacks

Published by skeptic

The collection of millions of hacked computers known as Aisuru and Kimwolf have been used to launch some of the biggest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks ever seen. Now United States law enforcement agencies have wiped both of them off the internet along with two of the other hordes of hijacked computers—known as botnets—in a single broad takedown. On Thursday, the US Department of Justice, working with the cybercrime-fighting agency within the US Department of Defense known as the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, announced that it had dismantled four massive botnets in a single operation, removing the command-and-control servers used to commandeer the hacker-run armies of compromised devices known by the names JackSkid, Mossad, Aisuru, and Kimwolf. Together, operators of the four botnets had amassed more than 3 million devices, the Justice Department said, and often sold access to those devices to other criminal hackers as well as using them to target victims with overwhelming floods of attack traffic to knock websites and internet services offline. Aisuru and Kimwolf, a distinct but Aisuru-related botnet, had together …

AI stops cyber-attacks on 5G networks in under 100 milliseconds

AI stops cyber-attacks on 5G networks in under 100 milliseconds

Published by skeptic

Scientists have demonstrated a real-time defence framework designed to protect modern mobile networks and future 6G infrastructure from evolving cyber threats. Researchers at the University of Surrey have developed an artificial intelligence-based defence system capable of identifying and neutralising sophisticated cyber-attacks targeting 5G networks in under 100 milliseconds. The team says the approach could strengthen the security of next-generation mobile networks, including the future transition to 6G. As telecommunications infrastructure evolves, modern 5G systems are increasingly built on open, modular architectures. These designs allow operators to upgrade and expand networks more easily, but they also introduce new cybersecurity challenges. More interconnected components and software-driven functions create additional entry points for attackers. To address these vulnerabilities, the Surrey researchers developed a security framework called TwinGuard that combines AI with a digital twin of the network. The digital twin acts as a continuously updated virtual model of the live system, allowing the AI to monitor activity and detect unusual behaviour in near real time. Digital twin approach enables rapid response Unlike traditional security tools that rely heavily …

Which countries are best-placed to resist state-supported cyber-attacks? A government advisor explains

Which countries are best-placed to resist state-supported cyber-attacks? A government advisor explains

Published by skeptic

In April 2007, the Baltic nation of Estonia woke up to one of the world’s first major cyber-attacks on civil society carried out by a state. A series of massive “distributed denial of service” assaults – floods of fake traffic from networked computers – targeted government websites, banks, media outlets and online services for weeks, slowing or shutting them down. These cyber-attacks followed Estonia’s decision to relocate a Soviet-era war memorial and war graves from the centre of the capital city, Tallinn, to a military cemetery. Amplified by false reports in Russian media, this sparked nights of protest and rioting among Russian-speakers in Tallinn – and cyber chaos throughout the country. Though the cyber-attack was never officially sanctioned by the Kremlin, the “faceless perpetrators” were later shown to have Russian connections. Estonia has since transformed itself, in part through voluntary initiatives such as the Cyber Defence Unit (a network of private-sector IT experts), into a leader in this field. It is home to Nato’s Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, and ranks fifth in the International …

Which countries are best-placed to resist state-supported cyber-attacks? A government advisor explains

Which countries are best-placed to see off state-supported cyber-attacks? A government advisor explains

Published by skeptic

In April 2007, the Baltic nation of Estonia woke up to one of the world’s first major cyber-attacks on civil society carried out by a state. A series of massive “distributed denial of service” assaults – floods of fake traffic from networked computers – targeted government websites, banks, media outlets and online services for weeks, slowing or shutting them down. These cyber-attacks followed Estonia’s decision to relocate a Soviet-era war memorial and war graves from the centre of the capital city, Tallinn, to a military cemetery. Amplified by false reports in Russian media, this sparked nights of protest and rioting among Russian-speakers in Tallinn – and cyber chaos throughout the country. Though the cyber-attack was never officially sanctioned by the Kremlin, the “faceless perpetrators” were later shown to have Russian connections. Estonia has since transformed itself, in part through voluntary initiatives such as the Cyber Defence Unit (a network of private-sector IT experts), into a leader in this field. It is home to Nato’s Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, and ranks fifth in the International …

Polish Officials Blame Russian Domestic Spy Agency for Dec 29 Cyberattacks

Polish Officials Blame Russian Domestic Spy Agency for Dec 29 Cyberattacks

Published by Sam Flores

Jan 30 (Reuters) – Russia’s domestic spy agency was likely responsible ‌for ​cyberattacks late last month on 30 Polish ‌renewable energy facilities, a manufacturing firm and a plant supplying heat for nearly 500,000 customers, ​Polish officials said on Friday. A report by Poland’s Computer Emergency Response Team on the incident – which a Polish minister said was the worst ‍of its kind in years – pointed to ​a team of hackers from Russia’s Federal Security Service, known by its Russian acronym FSB. The hacks were “purely destructive in nature,” the report ​said, comparing them ⁠to arson. “It is worth noting that this period coincided with low temperatures and snowstorms affecting Poland, shortly before New Year’s Eve,” the report said. The Russian aim was to irreversibly destroy data stored on devices within the combined heat and power plant but security software blocked that portion of the attack, according to the report. The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to ‌a request for comment. OTHER ANALYSIS POINTS TO RUSSIAN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE Poland says its critical infrastructure …

Russian military intelligence hackers likely behind December cyberattacks on Polish energy targets, researchers say

Russian military intelligence hackers likely behind December cyberattacks on Polish energy targets, researchers say

Published by Sam Flores

Jan 23 : A notorious Russian military intelligence hacking unit with a track record of destructive cyber operations was likely behind the large cyberattacks that targeted Poland’s power system in late December, researchers said Friday. Researchers with Slovakia-based ESET analyzed malware used during the attack and determined that it was the work of the hacking unit, tracked widely as Sandworm, based on how the group has operated in the past and code overlaps with other destructive cyberattacks carried out by the group over the years, the researchers said in a blog post. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The hackers attempted to deploy a piece of malware dubbed DynoWiper that would have destroyed files on targeted computer systems and rendered them inoperable, according to the researchers. “We’re not aware of any successful disruption occurring as a result of this attack,” the researchers said, echoing Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s January 15 claim that the attacks were unsuccessful. Milosz Motyka, Poland’s energy minister, told reporters January 13 that …

Security researchers develop first-ever functional defense against cyberattacks on AI models

Security researchers develop first-ever functional defense against cyberattacks on AI models

Published by skeptic

Neural networks shape many tools you rely on every day, from photo filters to medical software. Building these systems is costly. They need enormous computing power, long training cycles, and huge collections of curated data. Companies treat the finished models as valuable property because they represent years of research. However, many of these systems are offered through online services where anyone can send in a question and receive a prediction. That convenience creates a quiet but growing danger. Attackers are learning to steal the internal parameters that make these models run. Researchers now warn that the most advanced of these attacks, called cryptanalytic extraction, can rebuild a model by asking it thousands of carefully chosen questions. Each answer helps reveal tiny clues about the model’s internal structure. Over time, those clues form a detailed map that exposes the model’s weights and biases. These attacks work surprisingly well when used on neural networks that rely on ReLU activation functions. Because these networks behave like piecewise linear systems, attackers can hunt for points where a neuron’s output …