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US Releases Detailed Look at Russia’s Election Hacking

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

US Releases Detailed Look at Russia's Election Hacking

The US on Thursday released its most detailed report yet on Russia’s efforts to interfere in the US presidential election by hacking American political sites and email accounts.

The 13-page joint analysis by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI was the first such report ever to attribute malicious cyber activity to a particular country or actors.

It was also the first time the US has officially and specifically tied intrusions into the Democratic National Committee to hackers with the Russian civilian and military intelligence services, the FSB and GRU, expanding on an October 7 accusation by the Obama administration.

The report said the intelligence services were involved in “an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the US government and its citizens.” It added, “In some cases, (the Russian intelligence services’) actors masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack.”

Over the summer stolen emails from Democrats were posted by an online persona known as Guccifer 2.0, believed by US officials to be linked to Russia. Outrage over documents that appeared to show favoritism for Hillary Clinton forced the DNC’s chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to resign.
The US released the report as President Barack Obama sanctioned the GRU and the FSB, the GRU’s leadership and companies which the US said support the GRU.

Thursday’s sanctions were the administration’s first use of a 2015 executive order for combatting cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure and commercial espionage. Because election systems aren’t considered critical infrastructure, Obama amended the order Thursday to allow for sanctions on entities “interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions.”

The retaliation against Russia, just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, culminated months of political handwringing about how and whether to respond to Moscow’s meddling. US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia’s goal was to help Trump win – an assessment Trump has dismissed as ridiculous. Trump said Thursday he would meet with the intelligence community’s leaders next week for an update on the situation.

The report did not go far beyond confirming details already disclosed by cyber-security firm CrowdStrike, which was hired to investigate the DNC hacks.

It described the intelligence services’ use of “spearphishing” – fake emails intended to trick victims into typing in their user names and passwords. At least one person opened attachments with malicious software. The report noted that actors “likely associated” with Russian intelligence services are continuing to engage in spearphishing campaigns, including one launched just days after the US election.

The DNC was infiltrated by the FSB in summer 2015 and again by the GRU in spring 2016 using spearphishing emails that often appeared to come from legitimate or official organizations, the report said.

Russian officials have denied any involvement in hacking US political sites and emails.

The report provides clues for cybersecurity workers in the private sector to identify compromised systems and prevent more intrusions. The Department of Homeland Security said it has already included this information within its own cyber threat information-sharing program, which automatically flags threats in real time for participating companies and agencies.

US officials also provided antivirus vendors with two malicious software samples used by Russian intelligence service.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

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Internet

Probe of Leaked NSA Hacking Tools Said to Focus on Operative’s ‘Mistake’

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Probe of Leaked NSA Hacking Tools Said to Focus on Operative's 'Mistake'

A US investigation into a leak of hacking tools used by the National Security Agency is focusing on a theory that one of its operatives carelessly left them available on a remote computer and Russian hackers found them, four people with direct knowledge of the probe told Reuters.

The tools, which enable hackers to exploit software flaws in computer and communications systems from vendors such as Cisco Systems and Fortinet Inc, were dumped onto public websites last month by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers.

The public release of the tools coincided with US officials saying they had concluded that Russia or its proxies were responsible for hacking political party organizations in the run-up to the November 8 presidential election. On Thursday, lawmakers accused Russia of being responsible.

Various explanations have been floated by officials in Washington as to how the tools were stolen. Some feared it was the work of a leaker similar to former agency contractor Edward Snowden, while others suspected the Russians might have hacked into NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

But officials heading the FBI-led investigation now discount both of those scenarios, the people said in separate interviews.

NSA officials have told investigators that an employee or contractor made the mistake about three years ago during an operation that used the tools, the people said.

That person acknowledged the error shortly afterward, they said. But the NSA did not inform the companies of the danger when it first discovered the exposure of the tools, the sources said. Since the public release of the tools, the companies involved have issued patches in the systems to protect them.

Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the former NSA person, who has since departed the agency for other reasons, left the tools exposed deliberately. Another possibility, two of the sources said, is that more than one person at the headquarters or a remote location made similar mistakes or compounded each other’s missteps.

Representatives of the NSA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the office of the Director of National Intelligence all declined to comment.

After the discovery, the NSA tuned its sensors to detect use of any of the tools by other parties, especially foreign adversaries with strong cyber espionage operations, such as China and Russia.

 That could have helped identify rival powers’ hacking targets, potentially leading them to be defended better. It might also have allowed US officials to see deeper into rival hacking operations while enabling the NSA itself to continue using the tools for its own operations.

Because the sensors did not detect foreign spies or criminals using the tools on US or allied targets, the NSA did not feel obligated to immediately warn the US manufacturers, an official and one other person familiar with the matter said.

In this case, as in more commonplace discoveries of security flaws, US officials weigh what intelligence they could gather by keeping the flaws secret against the risk to US companies and individuals if adversaries find the same flaws.

Critics of the Obama administration’s policies for making those decisions have cited the Shadow Brokers dump as evidence that the balance has tipped too far toward intelligence gathering.

The investigators have not determined conclusively that the Shadow Brokers group is affiliated with the Russian government, but that is the presumption, said one of the people familiar with the probe and a fifth person.

One reason for suspecting government instead of criminal involvement, officials said, is that the hackers revealed the NSA tools rather than immediately selling them.

The publication of the code, on the heels of leaks of emails by Democratic Party officials and preceding leaks of emails by former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, could be part of a pattern of spreading harmful and occasionally false information to further the Russian agenda, said Jim Lewis, a cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The dumping is a tactic they’ve been developing for the last five years or so,” Lewis said. “They try it, and if we don’t respond they go a little further next time.”

[Source:- gadgets. ndtv]

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Internet

Two Men Arrested in US for Hacking Emails of Top Officials

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Two Men Arrested in US for Hacking Emails of Top Officials

Two men suspected of belonging to a network that hacked the emails of top American officials including CIA chief John Brennan were arrested Thursday in North Carolina, the authorities announced.

Andrew Otto Boggs, 22, and Justin Gray Liverman, 24, are accused of taking part in a group of hackers nicknamed the “Crackas With Attitude,” a Justice Department statement said.

Members of the network illegally accessed the personal data of the officials and their families between October 2015 and February 2016, downloading private information and then publishing it on public sites or harassing their victims by telephone, according to the department.

At least three members of the group reside in Britain, where they are under investigation, the department said.

Boggs, who uses the alias “INCURSIO,” and Liverman, who goes by “D3F4ULT,” are to appear next week before a federal court in Virginia to answer to the charges.

In October 2015, the WikiLeaks organization published documents drawn from Brennan’s personal emails. He expressed “outrage” over the cyber-attack, saying he had not been irresponsible in his use of a personal email account.

Police in Britain investigating the matter, in February arrested a 16-year-old student suspected of involvement.

CNN and the technology website Motherboard reported at the time that the targets of “Crackas With Attitude” included top CIA officials like Brennan, as well as senior figures in the FBI, the Homeland Security Department, the White House and other federal agencies.

In January, the US director of national intelligence James Clapper said that he, too, had been the victim of cyber pirates who had gained access to the personal account he used for internet and telephone service, managing even to intercept phone calls from his home, Motherboard reported.

[Source:- gadets.ndtv]

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Internet

Two Men Arrested in US for Hacking Emails of Top Officials

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Two Men Arrested in US for Hacking Emails of Top Officials

Two men suspected of belonging to a network that hacked the emails of top American officials including CIA chief John Brennan were arrested Thursday in North Carolina, the authorities announced.

Andrew Otto Boggs, 22, and Justin Gray Liverman, 24, are accused of taking part in a group of hackers nicknamed the “Crackas With Attitude,” a Justice Department statement said.

Members of the network illegally accessed the personal data of the officials and their families between October 2015 and February 2016, downloading private information and then publishing it on public sites or harassing their victims by telephone, according to the department.

At least three members of the group reside in Britain, where they are under investigation, the department said.

Boggs, who uses the alias “INCURSIO,” and Liverman, who goes by “D3F4ULT,” are to appear next week before a federal court in Virginia to answer to the charges.

In October 2015, the WikiLeaks organization published documents drawn from Brennan’s personal emails. He expressed “outrage” over the cyber-attack, saying he had not been irresponsible in his use of a personal email account.

Police in Britain investigating the matter, in February arrested a 16-year-old student suspected of involvement.

CNN and the technology website Motherboard reported at the time that the targets of “Crackas With Attitude” included top CIA officials like Brennan, as well as senior figures in the FBI, the Homeland Security Department, the White House and other federal agencies.

In January, the US director of national intelligence James Clapper said that he, too, had been the victim of cyber pirates who had gained access to the personal account he used for internet and telephone service, managing even to intercept phone calls from his home, Motherboard reported.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

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Tech Update

Software Flaws Used in Hacking More Than Double, Setting Record

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Illustration file picture shows a man typing on a computer keyboard in Warsaw

The number of previously unknown software flaws used by hackers more than doubled last year, a new report says, in another sign of the increasing sophistication of cybercrime and online espionage.

Secret vulnerabilities in computer programs are especially prized by criminal gangs, law enforcement and spies because software vendors have not been warned and so cannot publish fixes.

In 2015, 54 such holes came to light and were deployed by hackers, according to a report published on Monday by the largest security software vendor, Symantec Corp. That is up dramatically from 24 the year before and 23 the year before that; the next-highest total over the past 10 years was 15 in 2007.

Symantec’s total of “zero-day” or unknown vulnerabilities includes both flaws that were discovered because they were used by top-flight hackers who left tracks and those that were revealed to the public at the same time as the software maker.

In 2015, electronic files named “Hacking Team” were dumped on the Internet, including six zero-days that criminals quickly made use of.

Thousands of other flaws were identified as usual last year by vendors, outside researchers, and government agencies. The vendors develop and issue patches, either announcing the flaws or pointing to them by virtue of the fixes.

Since criminals and others immediately take advantage of flaws to reach into unfixed machines, users must patch rapidly and completely or face being hacked.

Though most attacks happen because of inadequate patching, the rapid spread of new flaws through “exploit kits” sold in underground forums has allowed zero-days to be obtained by more people, including those installing ransomware and programs for stealing financial logins.

Four of the five most-used zero-day vulnerabilities last year were in Adobe Systems Inc’s Flash software, which can be used as a standalone program or a plug-in for various Web browsers, not all of which automatically update with Flash patches. Symantec said it expected Flash to become less popular as platforms stop supporting it, making it less of a bonanza for hackers.

Adobe said it had improved its security response. “Flash Player is one of the most ubiquitous and widely distributed pieces of software in the world, and as such, is a target of malicious hackers,” the company said via email.

“With regards to zero-days, we’ve been able to expedite the patching process to just days.”

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Tech Update

U.S. high court approves rule change to expand FBI hacking power

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

A lock icon, signifying an encrypted Internet connection, is seen on an Internet Explorer browser in a photo illustration in Paris April 15, 2014. REUTERS/Mal Langsdon

The Supreme Court on Thursday approved a rule change that would let U.S. judges issue search warrants for access to computers located in any jurisdiction despite opposition from civil liberties groups who say it will greatly expand the FBI’s hacking authority.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts transmitted the rules to Congress, which will have until Dec. 1 to reject or modify the changes to the federal rules of criminal procedure. If Congress does not act, the rules would take effect automatically.

Magistrate judges normally can order searches only within the jurisdiction of their court, which is typically limited to a few counties.

The U.S. Justice Department, which has pushed for the rule change since 2013, has described it as a minor modification needed to modernize the criminal code for the digital age, and has said it would not permit searches or seizures that are not already legal.

Google, owned by Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), and civil liberties groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Access Now contend the change would vastly expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s ability to conduct mass hacks on computer networks.

They say it also could run afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

While Congress can reject amendments to the rules that govern federal courts, it rarely exercises that authority and is not expected to do so during a heated election year. And few lawmakers have shown interest in the subject.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, condemned the rule change as having “significant consequences for Americans’ privacy,” and vowed to introduce legislation to reverse it.

“Under the proposed rules, the government would now be able to obtain a single warrant to access and search thousands or millions of computers at once; and the vast majority of the affected computers would belong to the victims, not the perpetrators, of a cybercrime,” Wyden said in a statement.

The Justice Department’s quest to broaden warrant jurisdiction has not drawn as much attention as other recent confrontations over government access to digital information. These included the FBI’s standoff with Apple over encryption arising from the agency’s effort to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in December’s San Bernardino massacre.

A Justice Department spokesman said the change was necessary because criminals increasingly use “anonymizing” technologies to conceal their identity online, and remote searches are often the only way to apprehend such suspects.

The change does not authorize any new authorities not already permitted by law, the spokesman said.

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Tech Update

Software Flaws Used in Hacking More Than Double, Setting Record

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

The number of previously unknown software flaws used by hackers more than doubled last year, a new report says, in another sign of the increasing sophistication of cybercrime and online espionage.

Secret vulnerabilities in computer programs are especially prized by criminal gangs, law enforcement and spies because software vendors have not been warned and so cannot publish fixes.

Illustration file picture shows a man typing on a computer keyboard in Warsaw
A man types on a computer keyboard in Warsaw in this February 28, 2013 illustration file picture. 

In 2015, 54 such holes came to light and were deployed by hackers, according to a report published on Monday by the largest security software vendor, Symantec Corp. That is up dramatically from 24 the year before and 23 the year before that; the next-highest total over the past 10 years was 15 in 2007.

Symantec’s total of “zero-day” or unknown vulnerabilities includes both flaws that were discovered because they were used by top-flight hackers who left tracks and those that were revealed to the public at the same time as the software maker.

In 2015, electronic files named “Hacking Team” were dumped on the Internet, including six zero-days that criminals quickly made use of.

Thousands of other flaws were identified as usual last year by vendors, outside researchers, and government agencies. The vendors develop and issue patches, either announcing the flaws or pointing to them by virtue of the fixes.

Since criminals and others immediately take advantage of flaws to reach into unfixed machines, users must patch rapidly and completely or face being hacked.

Though most attacks happen because of inadequate patching, the rapid spread of new flaws through “exploit kits” sold in underground forums has allowed zero-days to be obtained by more people, including those installing ransomware and programs for stealing financial logins.

Four of the five most-used zero-day vulnerabilities last year were in Adobe Systems Inc’s Flash software, which can be used as a standalone program or a plug-in for various Web browsers, not all of which automatically update with Flash patches. Symantec said it expected Flash to become less popular as platforms stop supporting it, making it less of a bonanza for hackers.

Adobe said it had improved its security response. “Flash Player is one of the most ubiquitous and widely distributed pieces of software in the world, and as such, is a target of malicious hackers,” the company said via email.

“With regards to zero-days, we’ve been able to expedite the patching process to just days.”

[Source:- Nbcnews]

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