Research Saturday

The NETSCOUT Arbor ASERT team has been tracking Cobalt Group campaigns targeting financial institutions. Richard Hummel is manager of threat intelligence with ASERT, and he joins us to share his team's findings. 

The research can be found here:

https://asert.arbornetworks.com/double-the-infection-double-the-fun/

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Joseph Nye is former dean of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He served as Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs under President Clinton. He serves as a Commissioner for the Global Commission on Internet Governance, and is the author of over a dozen books, including, “Soft Power: The means to success in work politics,” and “The future of power.”

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Symantec technical director Vikram Thakur returns to share his team's look at threat groups APT 28 and APT 29, the influence they had on the 2016 election, and how the cyber security industry has responded in preparation for the 2018 midterms.

The original research can be found here:

https://www.symantec.com/blogs/election-security/election-hacking-faq

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Researchers at security firm Check Point Software Technologies explored the possibility of exploiting old, complex fax protocols to gain access to modern multifunction office printers, and then pivot to connected networks. 

Yaniv Balmas is head of security research at Check Point, and he joins us to share what he and his colleague Eyal Itkin discovered.

The research can be found here:

https://research.checkpoint.com/sending-fax-back-to-the-dark-ages/

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Security firm Lastline recently took a close look at threats to the Office 365 cloud environment, taking advantage of the insights they gain protecting their clients. 

Andy Norton is director of threat intelligence at Lastline, and he joins us to describe their findings. 

The research can be found here:

https://www.lastline.com/blog/malspam-malscape-snapshot-malicious-activity-in-the-office-365-cloud/

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Researchers at Virginia Tech investigate possible ways to manipulate GPS signals and send drivers to specific locations without their knowledge. 

Gang Wang is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Virginia Tech, and he joins us to share his team's findings.

The original research can be found here:

https://people.cs.vt.edu/gangwang/sec18-gps.pdf

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Researchers at Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 have been tracking the rise of cryptocurrency mining operations run by criminal groups around the world. Ryan Olson is V.P. of threat intelligence at Palo Alto Networks, and he joins us to share what they've learned.

The original research can be found here:

https://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2018/06/unit42-rise-cryptocurrency-miners/

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Researchers at security firm FireEye have been tracking malicious actors they call FIN7, a group which targets payment card data in the hospitality industry and elsewhere. They make use of targeted phishing campaigns, telephone vishing and even a convincing front company to do their deeds. 

Nick Carr and Barry Vengerick are coauthors of the research, along with their colleagues Kimberly Goody and Steve Miller. 

The research is titled On the Hunt for FIN7: Pursuing an Enigmatic and Evasive Global Criminal Operation. It can be found here:

https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2018/08/fin7-pursuing-an-enigmatic-and-evasive-global-criminal-operation.html

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Researchers at security firm Cybereason recently set up online honeypots to attract adversaries interested in industrial control system environments. It didn't take long for sophisticated attackers to sniff out the virtual honey and start snuffling around.

Ross Rustici is senior director of intelligence services at Cybereason, and he joins us to share what they learned.

The research is titled ICS Threat Broadens: Nation-state Hackers are no Longer the Only Game in Town. It can be found here:

https://www.cybereason.com/blog/industrial-control-system-specialized-hackers

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A team of researchers from Northeastern University and UC Santa Barbara examined over 17,000 Android apps, and revealed a number of alarming privacy risks. 

Elleen Pan and Christo Wilson were members of the research team, and they join us to share what they found. 

The research is titled Panoptispy: Characterizing Audio and Video Exfiltration from Android Applications. It can be found here:

https://recon.meddle.mobi/papers/panoptispy18pets.pdf

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