CyberWire Daily

In today's podcast, we review reports saying that Deloitte has been hacked. Details are sparse but the story is developing. A Verizon AWS S3 bucket is found exposed online. Locky is being spammed out in quantity. Phantom Squad hoods run a DDoS protection racket. Kinetic tensions the US, Tehran, and North Korea raise expectations of cyber offensives. Chinese intelligence thought behind CCleaner backdoor. Unnamed ISPs accused of FinFisher spyware campaign complicity. Chris Poulin from BAH on vulnerabilities in connected cars. And Carlos Danger will go to the Big House. 

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In 2016 Bitdefender uncovered a new advanced persistent threat dubbed Pacifier, targeting government institutions starting in 2014. Using malicious .doc documents and .zip files distributed via spear phishing e-mails, attackers would lure victims with invitations to social functions or conferences into executing the attachments. It’s capable of dropping multi-stage backdoors.

Liviu Arsene is a senior e-threat analyst at BitDefender, and he's our guide to the complex components of Pacifier APT.

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In today's podcast, we hear that the EDGAR breach is being seen as a blow to confidence in financial system. Credit bureaus continue to receive heightened scrutiny after the Equifax breach. FinFisher campaign suggests ISPs may have been compromised. The backdoor in CCleaner seems to have targeted specific companies. US Forces Korea personnel receive a bogus noncombatant evacuation order. Someone behind Locky watches a lot of Game of Thrones. Malek Ben Salem from Accenture Labs with a new attack vector that uses power management systems. Guest is Robert Sell sharing his experience participating in a DEFCON capture the flag. And Thomas the Tank Engine would never do what some skids show him doing. 

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In today's podcast, we hear that the SEC was hacked, and someone might have made a lot of money from the incident. Equifax tweets send inquirers to a phishing site. Investigation into the Avast caper suggests a state intelligence service's hand. The Department of Homeland Security clarifies its ban on Kaspersky products. Emily Wilson from Terbium Labs, cautioning us to not be so distracted by big shiny objects like "taking down the power grid" that we forget the basics, like enabling two-factor authentication. Richard Henderson, global security strategist at Absolute, commenting on the Equifax breach and the challenges of keeping up with patching. And chatbots turn spiritual. 

Thanks for listening to the CyberWire. One of the ways you can support what we do is by visiting our sponsors. Recorded Future's user conference RFUN 2017 comes to Washington, D.C. , October 4th and 5th, 2017, bringing together the people who put the act in actionable intelligence. If you’d like to learn more about how small nuances in how artificial intelligence and machine learning are used can make a big difference, check out E8’s white paper.

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In today's podcast we learn that so far Russian influence seems not to be operating in Germany's election. Iran's APT33 turns from spying to sabotage. Equifax woes continue, but don't appear to include cover-up of an earlier breach. UpGuard helps Viacom dodge a cyber bullet. You may be party to a contract you didn’t know about. Criminal boneheads again more common than criminal geniuses. Ben Yelin from UMD CHHS with a story of the FBI raiding the wrong home based on WiFi router information. Guest is Eddie Habibi from PAS, debunking some ICS myths. And don't be a gazelle. 

Thanks for listening to the CyberWire. One of the ways you can support what we do is by visiting our sponsors. Recorded Future's user conference RFUN 2017 comes to Washington, D.C. , October 4th and 5th, 2017, bringing together the people who put the act in actionable intelligence. If you’d like to learn more about how small nuances in how artificial intelligence and machine learning are used can make a big difference, check out E8’s white paper.

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In today's podcast, we hear that WikiLeaks is shocked, shocked, to learn that there's gambling…uh, we mean, Russian surveillance going on. Advice from Ukraine about influence operations. The Equifax story may have gotten worse—there may have been an earlier breach in March. Software supply chain issues come up in an Avast backdoor. Awais Rashid from Lancaster University on security being the responsibility of everyone in an organization, not just the IT folks. Mike Kail from Cybric on the DevSecOps trend. Industry notes, and the "Unlucky 13,' presented by Johns Hopkins. 

Thanks for listening to the CyberWire. One of the ways you can support what we do is by visiting our sponsors. Recorded Future's user conference RFUN 2017 comes to Washington, D.C. , October 4th and 5th, 2017, bringing together the people who put the act in actionable intelligence. If you’d like to learn more about how small nuances in how artificial intelligence and machine learning are used can make a big difference, check out E8’s white paper.

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In today's podcast, we note reports that, while Germany will hold elections Sunday, Russian cyber operators seem quiet. Too quiet? Switzerland and Singapore both report sustaining state-sponsored cyber espionage attempts. ISIS howls for its lone wolves to hit soft targets. The Equifax breach news isn't getting any better. Cisco finds a backdoor in an Avast security product. Chris Poulin from Booz Allen Hamilton, our newest industry partner, introduces himself. He leads the Internet of Things security strategy in Booz Allen’s Dark Labs, as well as dabbles in Machine Intelligence. He joins BAH from IBM, where he lead their X-Force research teams and built the first prototype Watson for cybersecurity.OurMine hackers hit Vevo to redress an insult delivered over LinkedIn. 

Thanks for listening to the CyberWire. One of the ways you can support what we do is by visiting our sponsors. Recorded Future's user conference RFUN 2017 comes to Washington, D.C. , October 4th and 5th, 2017, bringing together the people who put the act in actionable intelligence. If you’d like to learn more about how small nuances in how artificial intelligence and machine learning are used can make a big difference, check out E8’s white paper.

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Deepen Desai, senior director of security research and operations at Zscaler, describes research he and his team have been doing since discovered a clever bit of malware they’ve named Cobian RAT. (RAT stands for Remote Access Trojan.) It’s available for free, but contains a back door that allows the original author to access and control the RAT remotely.

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In today's podcast, we hear about how Equifax continues to struggle in the quicksand of wayward patching and clumsy incident response. Congress, the FTC, the CFPB, and DoNotPay are all taking an interest. Another unsecured database—this one for sale to political campaigns—is found (Alaska voters are affected). Kaspersky says his company is a bystander that's been hit in the Russo-American political crossfire. The US Navy continues to investigate the USS McCain collision. Justin Harvey from Accenture on what it’s like to be on an incident response team. Luke Beeson from BT on the challenges such a large organization faces protecting themselves and their clients. And Harvard decides Manning won't be a Kennedy School Fellow after all. 

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In today's podcast, we hear that DHS tells the US Executive Branch to stop using Kaspersky security software. Kromtech finds ElastiSearch servers hosting point-of-sale malware. BlueBorne bugs buzz billions of boxes. Equifax says that its breach was accomplished via the Apache Struts flaw patched in April. Industry notes include both venture funding and acquisition news. We take a quick look back at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit. Johannes Ulrich with an update on the Mirai botnet. Renato Marinho, Chief Research Officer at Morphus Labs, on a bad Chrome browser extension that can steal banking credentials. And robo-lawyers come to small claims court. 

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