Cyber Defense Advisors

Year: 2024

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  • April 14, 2024

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking twice at RSA Conference 2024 in San Francisco. I’ll be on a panel on software liability on May 6, 2024 at 8:30 AM, and I’m giving a keynote on AI and democracy on May 7, 2024 at 2:25 PM. […]

Cyber News
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  • April 13, 2024

Ex-Security Engineer Jailed 3 Years for $12.3 Million Crypto Exchange Thefts

A former security engineer has been sentenced to three years in prison in the U.S. for charges relating to hacking two decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges in July 2022 and stealing over $12.3 million. Shakeeb Ahmed, the defendant in question, pled guilty to one count of computer fraud in December 2023 following his arrest in July. “At […]

Cyber News
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  • April 13, 2024

U.S. Treasury Hamas Spokesperson for Cyber Influence Operations

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Friday announced sanctions against an official associated with Hamas for his involvement in cyber influence operations. Hudhayfa Samir ‘Abdallah al-Kahlut, 39, also known as Abu Ubaida, has served as the public spokesperson of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, since at […]

Cyber News
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  • April 13, 2024

Hackers Deploy Python Backdoor in Palo Alto Zero-Day Attack

Threat actors have been exploiting the newly disclosed zero-day flaw in Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software dating back to March 26, 2024, nearly three weeks before it came to light yesterday. The network security company’s Unit 42 division is tracking the activity under the name Operation MidnightEclipse, attributing it as the work of a single […]

Cyber News
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  • April 12, 2024

Friday Squid Blogging: The Awfulness of Squid Fishing Boats

The scientists learning to speak whalehttps://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240409-the-scientists-learning-to-speak-whale “In a world-first, scientists had a “conversation” with a whale. Now, researchers are trying to find out what they are actually saying. A growling “throp” noise emanates from the research vessel’s underwater speaker. A humpback breaks away from its group and approaches. The mammal circles the boat. It surfaces […]

Cyber News
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  • April 12, 2024

Popular Rust Crate liblzma-sys Compromised with XZ Utils Backdoor Files

“Test files” associated with the XZ Utils backdoor have made their way to a Rust crate known as liblzma-sys, new findings from Phylum reveal. liblzma-sys, which has been downloaded over 21,000 times to date, provides Rust developers with bindings to the liblzma implementation, an underlying library that is part of the XZ Utils data compression […]

Cyber News
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  • April 12, 2024

Code Keepers: Mastering Non-Human Identity Management

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords […]

Cyber News
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  • April 12, 2024

Smuggling Gold by Disguising it as Machine Parts

Someone got caught trying to smuggle 322 pounds of gold (that’s about a quarter of a cubic foot) out of Hong Kong. It was disguised as machine parts: On March 27, customs officials x-rayed two air compressors and discovered that they contained gold that had been “concealed in the integral parts” of the compressors. Those […]

Cyber News
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  • April 12, 2024

Iranian MuddyWater Hackers Adopt New C2 Tool ‘DarkBeatC2’ in Latest Campaign

The Iranian threat actor known as MuddyWater has been attributed to a new command-and-control (C2) infrastructure called DarkBeatC2, becoming the latest such tool in its arsenal after SimpleHarm, MuddyC3, PhonyC2, and MuddyC2Go. “While occasionally switching to a new remote administration tool or changing their C2 framework, MuddyWater’s methods remain constant,” Deep Instinct security researcher Simon […]

Cyber News