enhanced_deficit
11-30-2014, 06:33 PM
Sony was reported to be involved in some pro war productions but this is strange newws.
Sony Struggles to Fight #GOP Hackers Who Claim Stolen Data Includes Stars’ IDs, Budget and Contract Figures
By Todd Cunningham and Sharon Waxman on November 28, 2014
http://p1cdn01.thewrap.com/images/2014/11/hacked-by-gop-618x400.png
The Guardians of Peace group, which says it is responsible for Monday's attack, releases list of files it says it has found
The situation at Sony Pictures Entertainment is more dire than the studio has allowed to be known, as the fifth day of hackers taking down the studio's computer system continues though a threat to release private information has not materialized, TheWrap has learned.
The studio has taken as much of its functions offline as possible, and managed to get payroll out as well as sustain DVD sales for titles like “Spider-Man” (http://www.thewrap.com/tag/spider-man/) on the all-important Black Friday. One insider said company email is expected to be back on Monday.
But as of Friday the studio's email, phone system and computers remained paralyzed, and in some cases staffers were using whiteboards to get things done. The studio's Twitter accounts have also been hacked, according to two individuals with knowledge of the situation.
And while the studio has set up a parallel system offline, there is apparently no solution that has been found to undo the attack.
According to one insider who spoke to TheWrap: “Every PC in the company is useless and all of the content files have either been stolen or destroyed or locked away.”
http://www.thewrap.com/sony-execs-working-on-chalkboards-while-hackers-claim-stolen-data-includes-stars-ids-budget-and-contract-figures/
Related
Nearly 200 Hollywood Actors and Execs Sign Pro-Israel, Anti-Hamas Statement
August 23, 2014
http://p1cdn01.thewrap.com/images/2014/08/pro-israel-anti-hamas-618x400.jpg
Amy Pascal, Ivan Reitman, Seth Rogen, Phil Rosenthal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Marty Singer, Aaron Sorkin, Sylvester Stallone, Nina Tassler, Jerry Weintraub and plenty others lend their names in support
Nearly 200 Hollywood actors and executives have signed Creative Community for Peace's pro-Israel, anti-Hamas open letter.
“Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage,” the statement chastised. “Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields.”
http://www.thewrap.com/israel-hamas-hollywood-creative-community-for-peace/
http://www.fidf.org/image/western-region-/-la/2013_la_gala/FIDF-4.jpg
Update 2:
This did not get much coverage in uncontrolled US media but in the light of recent Sony Pictures hack news, this news may have more significance.
Gaza Anonymous Hacking Attack Shuts Down 'Hundreds' Of Israeli Government Websites
Huffington Post UK | By Louise Ridley
05/08/2014 18:05 BST Updated: 06/08/2014 09:59 BST
The hacking collective Anonymous has warned it will launch more attacks on Israeli government websites after apparently disabling more than 500, in a wave of cyber offensives which it says are in retaliation for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/gaza/).
It also claims to have leaked personal details of 70,000 users of the Israeli government jobseeker website zerem.co.il.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1948694/thumbs/o-PROTESTERS-WEARING-ANONYMOUS-MASKS-570.jpg
Pro-Palestinian protesters in France wearing the iconic Guy Fawkes mask, which has become symbolic of Anonymous
The hacking onslaught began at the weekend, with Anonymous claiming to have broken through complex cyber security for sites including some connected to Israeli Defence Force and Mossad, the Israeli secret service. Its attacks are being focused on websites using the gov.il and .il domains, the collective says.
A spokesman for Anonymous told The Huffington Post UK in broken English via Twitter: “I'm doing this for the Palestinian. The Israeli government must pay by the WHAT is he doing with the people Palestinian. [sic]”
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1948605/thumbs/o-ANONYMOUS-HACKED-HUNDREDS-OF-ISRAELI-WEBSITES-570.jpg
'Tango Down': A tweet from an Anonymous hacker claiming to have taken down an Israeli government website
Anonymous had previously announced that it is planning eight days of strikes on the websites, but the spokesman added that they “did not know” when the attacks would end and “more attacks” could come on Tuesday. Tweets from one of its accounts said Israel had experienced just "a small fraction" of its anger.
Some, including the main government website gov.il, the legal website court.gov.il and the defense websites israeldefense.com and israeldefense.co.il appeared to still be down at the time of writing.
The Anonymous spokesman acknowledged that many of the websites had since been restored. A spokesman for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netenyahu said he was unaware of the attacks.
The Twitter account @anonymousglobo listed sites as they were disabled, along with the phrase “tango down”.
The attack is also a reaction to the death in the West Bank of Tayyeb Shehadah, a 22-year-old who was wearing the iconic Guy Fawkes mask, which has become symbolic of Anonymous, when he was killed, reportedly by an Israeli soldier.
The attack is a reflection of the growing momentum of the digital aspect to the Gaza conflict, with the IDF also prolific in using the internet and social media to promote its perspective.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014...n_5650652.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/05/gaza-anonymous-hacking-at_n_5650652.html)
Anonymous hacker group attacks Israeli websites
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/64188000/jpg/_64188038_anonpress.jpg Anonymous announced its attacks via Twitter
Hacking group Anonymous has launched a series of cyber attacks against websites in Israel.
Data bombardments briefly knocked some sites offline and led to others being defaced with pro-Palestinian messages.
The OpIsrael campaign was launched by the hacking collective in retaliation for attacks on Gaza.
The cyber attacks come as the Israeli army updates its web campaign adding "achievements" and "badges" for regular visitors.
Anonymous said it had launched the OpIsrael campaign following threats by the Israeli government to cut all Gaza's telecommunication links. This, said the group in a statement posted to the AnonRelations website (http://anonrelations.net/opisrael-95/), "crossed a line in the sand".
"We are ANONYMOUS and NO ONE shuts down the Internet on our watch," it said.
The group warned the Israeli government not to cut off telecom and web links and urged it to end military operations in Gaza. If the attacks did not end, Israel would feel the group's "full and unbridled wrath".
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20356757
http://thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/anonymous-hackers-israel-e1353123128679.jpg
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/anonymousantiisrael.jpghttp://zdnet3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2014/10/05/5e0d1cff-4cab-11e4-b6a0-d4ae52e95e57/resize/770x578/cb4eebc91eef2c0b149d5bc48378c31e/twitter-youranonnews-israel-all-your-base-are-belong-v1.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9A9q0g7x9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9A9q0g7x9Y
Most Americans see Obama as Dishonest, Untrustworthy (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?433586-Majority-of-Americans-now-believe-Obama-is-quot-dishonest-and-untrustworthy)
Is "blame the movie for Sony hack" another "blame the video for Benghazi" moment for Obama? (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?465228-Is-quot-blame-the-movie-for-Sony-hack-quot-another-quot-blame-the-video-for-Benghazi-quot-moment-for-Obama&)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Powell_anthrax_jbc.jpg
Fooled Again
12.24.14
No, North Korea Didn’t Hack Sony
The FBI and the President may claim that the Hermit Kingdom is to blame for the most high-profile network breach in forever. But almost all signs point in another direction.
Sony hack perpetrator remains cloaked in mystery
The Associated Press December 24, 2014
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Despite President Barack Obama's conclusion that North Korea was the culprit, the Internet's newest game of whodunit continues. Top theories include disgruntled Sony insiders, hired hackers, other foreign governments or Internet hooligans.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/24/no-north-korea-didn-t-hack-sony.html
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/technology/North+Korea+disgruntled+insiders+among+suspects+So ny/10679052/story.html
Update 3:
Who will Sony hackers strike next? FBI & DHS fear major media group is target
December 31, 2014
The suspected Sony hackers might have more than just Hollywood in their crosshairs: according to a leaked FBI document, the “Guardians of Peace” group, or GOP, has threatened to go after not just the movie industry, but the news media as well.
On Wednesday, The Intercept published (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/31/sony-hackers-threaten-u-s-news-media-organization/) a joint intelligence bulletin circulated by the US government last week in which federal investigators acknowledge that an unnamed “news media organization” has been warned with suffering a fate similar to that endured by Sony Pictures Entertainment — the Hollywood entity ravaged by hackers in late November, purportedly over the planned release of the anti-North Korea comedy, “The Interview.”
The memo — dated Christmas Eve and distributed by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security — explains that the “cyber intrusion targeting USPER1 and related threats concerning the planned release of the movie, ‘The Interview’” have “extended to USPER2 — a news media organization — and may extend to other such organizations in the near future.”
“On 20 December, the GOP posted Pastebin messages that specifically taunted the FBI and USPER2 for the ‘quality’ of their investigations and implied an additional threat. No specific consequence was mentioned in the posting,” reads the bulletin issued by both agencies.
A message currently available on Pastebin and dated Dec. 20 suggests that CNN may be the entity in question.
“The result of investigation by CNN is so excellent that you might have seen what we were doing with your own eyes,” reads part of Pastebin post (http://pastebin.com/6mYBrp96) authored anonymously by someone claiming affiliation to GOP.
“We congratulate you success. CNN is the BEST in the world,” the message continues, along with a link to a YouTube video titled, “You are an idiot.”
A post script to the Pastebin message reads, “You have 24 hours to give us the Wolf”— presumably a reference to CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.
“The FBI and DHS are not aware of any specific credible information indicating a physical threat related to these postings,” the agencies add in their Christmas Eve the memo. “However, the potential remains for GOP or copycat actors to make renewed cyber and/or implied physical threats, to identify new targets or execute physical attacks if the movie is again scheduled for release.”
http://rt.com/usa/219087-sony-intercept-gop-cnn/
Cyber-defenders warn: Israel vulnerable to attack
Dec. 28, 2014
It seems that Israel – which has, per capita, more cybersecurity startup companies than any other country in the world, more companies dedicated to fighting hackers than in all of Europe combined, significant government investment in the field, strong collaboration between business, military and academia and even incentives for multinationals – does not have a simple answer. 'Kidding ourselves'
“We think we are a great cyber-secure nation, but we are kidding ourselves,” says Tanya Attias, a Belarus-born, Israel-based cyber intelligence consultant working for S2T, a Singapore company that develops big data and cyber intelligence solutions for governments and large corporations. Like many of the engineers and executives in Israel’s cybersecurity sector, Attias served in the Israeli Defense Forces’ elite and secretive technology intelligence unit.
“What happened to Sony, technically speaking, could happen here, anytime,” she says. “In fact, it already does. We just don’t hear about it.” She continues: “Israeli companies, corporations and government agencies, big and small alike, are attacked on a daily basis by all sorts of hackers – by Russians, or Palestinians, or Arabs from various countries.”
“Typically, such breaches of security go unreported, at least publicly,” says Davidson, who heads the cybersecurity arm of a Tel Aviv-based security company with more than $1 billion in sales annually. Davidson is a veteran of 8200, probably the most famous of the IDF’s intelligence units, which parallels many of the functions of the U.S. National Security Agency and, like Attias’ unit, also feeds Israel’s booming private cybersecurity sector.
The reason no one hears about these hacks, continues Davidson, is that attackers are often trying to gather information for purposes of espionage – and not to publicly shame their targets, as seems to have been the case with Sony. As such, making their work public rarely furthers the hackers’ goals – and the targets themselves, if they know they have been hit, have little incentive to take the stories public either.
“There are two aspects of breaking in – the easy part is to hack in … the harder part is to eliminate the log and any evidence of you being there,” says Moran Cerf, a child prodigy hacker and 8200 alum turned neuroscientist. “The best attacks are the ones where the target does not even know you were there.”
Hack work indeed
While there is clearly a lot that cybersecurity folks can learn from the attack on Sony and the fallout – the hack in and of itself, according to observers-in-the-know, was not particularity creative, innovative or sophisticated.
“The hackers in this case were not using new pieces of code,” says Nimrod Kozlovski, a professor of cyber studies at Tel Aviv University and a partner in JVP Cyber Labs, the cyber incubation and investment arm of a leading Israeli venture capital firm, Jerusalem Venture Partners. It was a “cut and mutate job,” he explains, in which the hackers reused a virus code, tweaked and relaunched “at least six components of previous malware.”
The old malware reused in the Sony case, according to media reports, included two data-erasing pieces of software called Shamoon and DarkSeoul, which can easily be found on the Internet – and which were used two years ago in attacks on South Korean banks and a Saudi Arabian oil company.
Besides tweaking the malware, what the Sony hackers almost definitely relied on, agree the experts, was simple human error they could take advantage of.
“Ninety nine percent of attacks are not pure cybersecurity attacks at all, but rather results of human error. Every attack I have seen in my life involved human error,” says Cerf, who is today an assistant professor at the Kellogg School of Management and the neuroscience program at Northwestern University. “It doesn’t even matter how much security you have… if one guy at Sony gave out his password or clicked on a link they should not have, that basically could have allowed a hacker entrance through the main door.”
The ability of hackers to modify viruses and keep ahead of the security systems, as well as the inevitability of human errors, means that it is all but impossible to guarantee that the next similar such hack can or will be stopped. But this does not mean, stresses Kozlovski, who served in the IDF’s electronic warfare unit, that there is not a growing cache of weapons to fight such attacks.
Gigabyte of prevention
One promising way to stem a future such attack, says Kozlovski, has to do with mapping out all the potential variations of a virus ahead of time. He points at an Israeli company that JVC invests in, CyActive, which he says is a trailblazer when it comes to preempting, rather than waiting to detect, an attack. “They created something like a genetic lab, took the existing viruses and then created hundreds of thousands of potential mutations on them – as well as antidotes.”
Another innovative approach being developed by several companies in Israel, continues Kozlovski, involves creating a more advanced system for investigating and prioritizing security violations.
“It seems that Sony’s existing security technologies did alert them that they might be under attack. But so many such alerts come in that no organization can cope immediately or take automatic action to disable the system,” explains Kozlovski. Typically, if the system identifies a suspicious event, it is reported back to the security information management platform (SIM), and only then investigated. Companies like RSA (co-invented by an Israeli) or the smaller (Israel based) SecBI use technology developed in the Israeli army to cut through the back-up of such reports and do big-data analytics of alerts, thus speeding up the process.
In addition to beefing up security, says Attias, she would advise anyone looking to thwart an attack to do serious intelligence work. “There are very few companies that have the money and the wherewithal to protect themselves adequately – and even those who do are not totally safe. Hackers are just faster and better,” she states.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/.premium-1.633845
FBI Investigating Whether Companies Are Engaged in Revenge Hacking
December 30, 2014
JPMorgan Proposal
Last year’s discussion among banks about retaliatory strikes came after a wave of so-called denial of service attacks starting in 2012 that temporarily disabled several of their websites. The U.S. attributed the attack to Iran’s Quds Force, McCaul said. Iran denied being behind the strikes.
FBI Caution
Spokespeople for other attendees, including NYSE, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, declined to comment when asked this month about the meeting.
The Treasury Department, in an emailed statement, said that as the leader of cybersecurity in the financial sector, it regularly meets with financial institutions to facilitate information-sharing and support post-hacking recovery efforts.
Jenny Shearer, an FBI spokeswoman, declined to comment about the meeting or any probe.
“The FBI cautions private-sector entities from taking offensive measures in response to being hacked,” Shearer said.
Presidential Approval
The practice of reaching into or disabling computers over international borders is so sensitive that if the U.S. government disables attacking servers without the permission of the host country, the approval of the president is required, according to a White House directive leaked last year by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The White House confirmed that such a directive exists. A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to to comment on the details of the directive.
Some counteroffensives that would be legally sensitive in the U.S. are mounted from foreign soil, according to people who work for several security firms.
Stolen Passwords
RSA experts in Israel send malware into online forums where stolen data is swapped, or the experts hack directly into these computers, the person said. This allows them to recover stolen bank passwords and other data on behalf of financial institutions through methods the banks can’t use themselves, the person said, adding that no U.S.-based employees of RSA are allowed to engage in the activities or handle the data.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-12-30/fbi-probes-if-banks-hacked-back-as-firms-mull-offensives
Sony Struggles to Fight #GOP Hackers Who Claim Stolen Data Includes Stars’ IDs, Budget and Contract Figures
By Todd Cunningham and Sharon Waxman on November 28, 2014
http://p1cdn01.thewrap.com/images/2014/11/hacked-by-gop-618x400.png
The Guardians of Peace group, which says it is responsible for Monday's attack, releases list of files it says it has found
The situation at Sony Pictures Entertainment is more dire than the studio has allowed to be known, as the fifth day of hackers taking down the studio's computer system continues though a threat to release private information has not materialized, TheWrap has learned.
The studio has taken as much of its functions offline as possible, and managed to get payroll out as well as sustain DVD sales for titles like “Spider-Man” (http://www.thewrap.com/tag/spider-man/) on the all-important Black Friday. One insider said company email is expected to be back on Monday.
But as of Friday the studio's email, phone system and computers remained paralyzed, and in some cases staffers were using whiteboards to get things done. The studio's Twitter accounts have also been hacked, according to two individuals with knowledge of the situation.
And while the studio has set up a parallel system offline, there is apparently no solution that has been found to undo the attack.
According to one insider who spoke to TheWrap: “Every PC in the company is useless and all of the content files have either been stolen or destroyed or locked away.”
http://www.thewrap.com/sony-execs-working-on-chalkboards-while-hackers-claim-stolen-data-includes-stars-ids-budget-and-contract-figures/
Related
Nearly 200 Hollywood Actors and Execs Sign Pro-Israel, Anti-Hamas Statement
August 23, 2014
http://p1cdn01.thewrap.com/images/2014/08/pro-israel-anti-hamas-618x400.jpg
Amy Pascal, Ivan Reitman, Seth Rogen, Phil Rosenthal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Marty Singer, Aaron Sorkin, Sylvester Stallone, Nina Tassler, Jerry Weintraub and plenty others lend their names in support
Nearly 200 Hollywood actors and executives have signed Creative Community for Peace's pro-Israel, anti-Hamas open letter.
“Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage,” the statement chastised. “Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields.”
http://www.thewrap.com/israel-hamas-hollywood-creative-community-for-peace/
http://www.fidf.org/image/western-region-/-la/2013_la_gala/FIDF-4.jpg
Update 2:
This did not get much coverage in uncontrolled US media but in the light of recent Sony Pictures hack news, this news may have more significance.
Gaza Anonymous Hacking Attack Shuts Down 'Hundreds' Of Israeli Government Websites
Huffington Post UK | By Louise Ridley
05/08/2014 18:05 BST Updated: 06/08/2014 09:59 BST
The hacking collective Anonymous has warned it will launch more attacks on Israeli government websites after apparently disabling more than 500, in a wave of cyber offensives which it says are in retaliation for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/gaza/).
It also claims to have leaked personal details of 70,000 users of the Israeli government jobseeker website zerem.co.il.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1948694/thumbs/o-PROTESTERS-WEARING-ANONYMOUS-MASKS-570.jpg
Pro-Palestinian protesters in France wearing the iconic Guy Fawkes mask, which has become symbolic of Anonymous
The hacking onslaught began at the weekend, with Anonymous claiming to have broken through complex cyber security for sites including some connected to Israeli Defence Force and Mossad, the Israeli secret service. Its attacks are being focused on websites using the gov.il and .il domains, the collective says.
A spokesman for Anonymous told The Huffington Post UK in broken English via Twitter: “I'm doing this for the Palestinian. The Israeli government must pay by the WHAT is he doing with the people Palestinian. [sic]”
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1948605/thumbs/o-ANONYMOUS-HACKED-HUNDREDS-OF-ISRAELI-WEBSITES-570.jpg
'Tango Down': A tweet from an Anonymous hacker claiming to have taken down an Israeli government website
Anonymous had previously announced that it is planning eight days of strikes on the websites, but the spokesman added that they “did not know” when the attacks would end and “more attacks” could come on Tuesday. Tweets from one of its accounts said Israel had experienced just "a small fraction" of its anger.
Some, including the main government website gov.il, the legal website court.gov.il and the defense websites israeldefense.com and israeldefense.co.il appeared to still be down at the time of writing.
The Anonymous spokesman acknowledged that many of the websites had since been restored. A spokesman for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netenyahu said he was unaware of the attacks.
The Twitter account @anonymousglobo listed sites as they were disabled, along with the phrase “tango down”.
The attack is also a reaction to the death in the West Bank of Tayyeb Shehadah, a 22-year-old who was wearing the iconic Guy Fawkes mask, which has become symbolic of Anonymous, when he was killed, reportedly by an Israeli soldier.
The attack is a reflection of the growing momentum of the digital aspect to the Gaza conflict, with the IDF also prolific in using the internet and social media to promote its perspective.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014...n_5650652.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/05/gaza-anonymous-hacking-at_n_5650652.html)
Anonymous hacker group attacks Israeli websites
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/64188000/jpg/_64188038_anonpress.jpg Anonymous announced its attacks via Twitter
Hacking group Anonymous has launched a series of cyber attacks against websites in Israel.
Data bombardments briefly knocked some sites offline and led to others being defaced with pro-Palestinian messages.
The OpIsrael campaign was launched by the hacking collective in retaliation for attacks on Gaza.
The cyber attacks come as the Israeli army updates its web campaign adding "achievements" and "badges" for regular visitors.
Anonymous said it had launched the OpIsrael campaign following threats by the Israeli government to cut all Gaza's telecommunication links. This, said the group in a statement posted to the AnonRelations website (http://anonrelations.net/opisrael-95/), "crossed a line in the sand".
"We are ANONYMOUS and NO ONE shuts down the Internet on our watch," it said.
The group warned the Israeli government not to cut off telecom and web links and urged it to end military operations in Gaza. If the attacks did not end, Israel would feel the group's "full and unbridled wrath".
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20356757
http://thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/anonymous-hackers-israel-e1353123128679.jpg
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/anonymousantiisrael.jpghttp://zdnet3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2014/10/05/5e0d1cff-4cab-11e4-b6a0-d4ae52e95e57/resize/770x578/cb4eebc91eef2c0b149d5bc48378c31e/twitter-youranonnews-israel-all-your-base-are-belong-v1.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9A9q0g7x9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9A9q0g7x9Y
Most Americans see Obama as Dishonest, Untrustworthy (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?433586-Majority-of-Americans-now-believe-Obama-is-quot-dishonest-and-untrustworthy)
Is "blame the movie for Sony hack" another "blame the video for Benghazi" moment for Obama? (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?465228-Is-quot-blame-the-movie-for-Sony-hack-quot-another-quot-blame-the-video-for-Benghazi-quot-moment-for-Obama&)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Powell_anthrax_jbc.jpg
Fooled Again
12.24.14
No, North Korea Didn’t Hack Sony
The FBI and the President may claim that the Hermit Kingdom is to blame for the most high-profile network breach in forever. But almost all signs point in another direction.
Sony hack perpetrator remains cloaked in mystery
The Associated Press December 24, 2014
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Despite President Barack Obama's conclusion that North Korea was the culprit, the Internet's newest game of whodunit continues. Top theories include disgruntled Sony insiders, hired hackers, other foreign governments or Internet hooligans.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/24/no-north-korea-didn-t-hack-sony.html
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/technology/North+Korea+disgruntled+insiders+among+suspects+So ny/10679052/story.html
Update 3:
Who will Sony hackers strike next? FBI & DHS fear major media group is target
December 31, 2014
The suspected Sony hackers might have more than just Hollywood in their crosshairs: according to a leaked FBI document, the “Guardians of Peace” group, or GOP, has threatened to go after not just the movie industry, but the news media as well.
On Wednesday, The Intercept published (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/31/sony-hackers-threaten-u-s-news-media-organization/) a joint intelligence bulletin circulated by the US government last week in which federal investigators acknowledge that an unnamed “news media organization” has been warned with suffering a fate similar to that endured by Sony Pictures Entertainment — the Hollywood entity ravaged by hackers in late November, purportedly over the planned release of the anti-North Korea comedy, “The Interview.”
The memo — dated Christmas Eve and distributed by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security — explains that the “cyber intrusion targeting USPER1 and related threats concerning the planned release of the movie, ‘The Interview’” have “extended to USPER2 — a news media organization — and may extend to other such organizations in the near future.”
“On 20 December, the GOP posted Pastebin messages that specifically taunted the FBI and USPER2 for the ‘quality’ of their investigations and implied an additional threat. No specific consequence was mentioned in the posting,” reads the bulletin issued by both agencies.
A message currently available on Pastebin and dated Dec. 20 suggests that CNN may be the entity in question.
“The result of investigation by CNN is so excellent that you might have seen what we were doing with your own eyes,” reads part of Pastebin post (http://pastebin.com/6mYBrp96) authored anonymously by someone claiming affiliation to GOP.
“We congratulate you success. CNN is the BEST in the world,” the message continues, along with a link to a YouTube video titled, “You are an idiot.”
A post script to the Pastebin message reads, “You have 24 hours to give us the Wolf”— presumably a reference to CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.
“The FBI and DHS are not aware of any specific credible information indicating a physical threat related to these postings,” the agencies add in their Christmas Eve the memo. “However, the potential remains for GOP or copycat actors to make renewed cyber and/or implied physical threats, to identify new targets or execute physical attacks if the movie is again scheduled for release.”
http://rt.com/usa/219087-sony-intercept-gop-cnn/
Cyber-defenders warn: Israel vulnerable to attack
Dec. 28, 2014
It seems that Israel – which has, per capita, more cybersecurity startup companies than any other country in the world, more companies dedicated to fighting hackers than in all of Europe combined, significant government investment in the field, strong collaboration between business, military and academia and even incentives for multinationals – does not have a simple answer. 'Kidding ourselves'
“We think we are a great cyber-secure nation, but we are kidding ourselves,” says Tanya Attias, a Belarus-born, Israel-based cyber intelligence consultant working for S2T, a Singapore company that develops big data and cyber intelligence solutions for governments and large corporations. Like many of the engineers and executives in Israel’s cybersecurity sector, Attias served in the Israeli Defense Forces’ elite and secretive technology intelligence unit.
“What happened to Sony, technically speaking, could happen here, anytime,” she says. “In fact, it already does. We just don’t hear about it.” She continues: “Israeli companies, corporations and government agencies, big and small alike, are attacked on a daily basis by all sorts of hackers – by Russians, or Palestinians, or Arabs from various countries.”
“Typically, such breaches of security go unreported, at least publicly,” says Davidson, who heads the cybersecurity arm of a Tel Aviv-based security company with more than $1 billion in sales annually. Davidson is a veteran of 8200, probably the most famous of the IDF’s intelligence units, which parallels many of the functions of the U.S. National Security Agency and, like Attias’ unit, also feeds Israel’s booming private cybersecurity sector.
The reason no one hears about these hacks, continues Davidson, is that attackers are often trying to gather information for purposes of espionage – and not to publicly shame their targets, as seems to have been the case with Sony. As such, making their work public rarely furthers the hackers’ goals – and the targets themselves, if they know they have been hit, have little incentive to take the stories public either.
“There are two aspects of breaking in – the easy part is to hack in … the harder part is to eliminate the log and any evidence of you being there,” says Moran Cerf, a child prodigy hacker and 8200 alum turned neuroscientist. “The best attacks are the ones where the target does not even know you were there.”
Hack work indeed
While there is clearly a lot that cybersecurity folks can learn from the attack on Sony and the fallout – the hack in and of itself, according to observers-in-the-know, was not particularity creative, innovative or sophisticated.
“The hackers in this case were not using new pieces of code,” says Nimrod Kozlovski, a professor of cyber studies at Tel Aviv University and a partner in JVP Cyber Labs, the cyber incubation and investment arm of a leading Israeli venture capital firm, Jerusalem Venture Partners. It was a “cut and mutate job,” he explains, in which the hackers reused a virus code, tweaked and relaunched “at least six components of previous malware.”
The old malware reused in the Sony case, according to media reports, included two data-erasing pieces of software called Shamoon and DarkSeoul, which can easily be found on the Internet – and which were used two years ago in attacks on South Korean banks and a Saudi Arabian oil company.
Besides tweaking the malware, what the Sony hackers almost definitely relied on, agree the experts, was simple human error they could take advantage of.
“Ninety nine percent of attacks are not pure cybersecurity attacks at all, but rather results of human error. Every attack I have seen in my life involved human error,” says Cerf, who is today an assistant professor at the Kellogg School of Management and the neuroscience program at Northwestern University. “It doesn’t even matter how much security you have… if one guy at Sony gave out his password or clicked on a link they should not have, that basically could have allowed a hacker entrance through the main door.”
The ability of hackers to modify viruses and keep ahead of the security systems, as well as the inevitability of human errors, means that it is all but impossible to guarantee that the next similar such hack can or will be stopped. But this does not mean, stresses Kozlovski, who served in the IDF’s electronic warfare unit, that there is not a growing cache of weapons to fight such attacks.
Gigabyte of prevention
One promising way to stem a future such attack, says Kozlovski, has to do with mapping out all the potential variations of a virus ahead of time. He points at an Israeli company that JVC invests in, CyActive, which he says is a trailblazer when it comes to preempting, rather than waiting to detect, an attack. “They created something like a genetic lab, took the existing viruses and then created hundreds of thousands of potential mutations on them – as well as antidotes.”
Another innovative approach being developed by several companies in Israel, continues Kozlovski, involves creating a more advanced system for investigating and prioritizing security violations.
“It seems that Sony’s existing security technologies did alert them that they might be under attack. But so many such alerts come in that no organization can cope immediately or take automatic action to disable the system,” explains Kozlovski. Typically, if the system identifies a suspicious event, it is reported back to the security information management platform (SIM), and only then investigated. Companies like RSA (co-invented by an Israeli) or the smaller (Israel based) SecBI use technology developed in the Israeli army to cut through the back-up of such reports and do big-data analytics of alerts, thus speeding up the process.
In addition to beefing up security, says Attias, she would advise anyone looking to thwart an attack to do serious intelligence work. “There are very few companies that have the money and the wherewithal to protect themselves adequately – and even those who do are not totally safe. Hackers are just faster and better,” she states.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/.premium-1.633845
FBI Investigating Whether Companies Are Engaged in Revenge Hacking
December 30, 2014
JPMorgan Proposal
Last year’s discussion among banks about retaliatory strikes came after a wave of so-called denial of service attacks starting in 2012 that temporarily disabled several of their websites. The U.S. attributed the attack to Iran’s Quds Force, McCaul said. Iran denied being behind the strikes.
FBI Caution
Spokespeople for other attendees, including NYSE, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, declined to comment when asked this month about the meeting.
The Treasury Department, in an emailed statement, said that as the leader of cybersecurity in the financial sector, it regularly meets with financial institutions to facilitate information-sharing and support post-hacking recovery efforts.
Jenny Shearer, an FBI spokeswoman, declined to comment about the meeting or any probe.
“The FBI cautions private-sector entities from taking offensive measures in response to being hacked,” Shearer said.
Presidential Approval
The practice of reaching into or disabling computers over international borders is so sensitive that if the U.S. government disables attacking servers without the permission of the host country, the approval of the president is required, according to a White House directive leaked last year by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The White House confirmed that such a directive exists. A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to to comment on the details of the directive.
Some counteroffensives that would be legally sensitive in the U.S. are mounted from foreign soil, according to people who work for several security firms.
Stolen Passwords
RSA experts in Israel send malware into online forums where stolen data is swapped, or the experts hack directly into these computers, the person said. This allows them to recover stolen bank passwords and other data on behalf of financial institutions through methods the banks can’t use themselves, the person said, adding that no U.S.-based employees of RSA are allowed to engage in the activities or handle the data.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-12-30/fbi-probes-if-banks-hacked-back-as-firms-mull-offensives