Cyber Defense Advisors

Year: 2024

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  • November 21, 2024

North Korean Front Companies Impersonate U.S. IT Firms to Fund Missile Programs

Threat actors with ties to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are impersonating U.S.-based software and technology consulting businesses in order to further their financial objectives as part of a broader information technology (IT) worker scheme. “Front companies, often based in China, Russia, Southeast Asia, and Africa, play a key role in masking the […]

Cyber News
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  • November 21, 2024

Secret Service Tracking People’s Locations without Warrant

This feels important: The Secret Service has used a technology called Locate X which uses location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on phones. Because users agreed to an opaque terms of service page, the Secret Service believes it doesn’t need a warrant. Tags: geolocation, privacy, Secret Service, surveillance, tracking Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier […]

Cyber News
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  • November 21, 2024

Cyber Story Time: The Boy Who Cried “Secure!”

As a relatively new security category, many security operators and executives I’ve met have asked us “What are these Automated Security Validation (ASV) tools?” We’ve covered that pretty extensively in the past, so today, instead of covering the “What is ASV?” I wanted to address the “Why ASV?” question. In this article, we’ll cover some […]

Cyber News
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  • November 21, 2024

Over 145,000 Industrial Control Systems Across 175 Countries Found Exposed Online

New research has uncovered more than 145,000 internet-exposed Industrial Control Systems (ICS) across 175 countries, with the U.S. alone accounting for over one-third of the total exposures. The analysis, which comes from attack surface management company Censys, found that 38% of the devices are located in North America, 35.4% in Europe, 22.9% in Asia, 1.7% […]

Cyber News
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  • November 21, 2024

5 Scattered Spider Gang Members Indicted in Multi-Million Dollar Cybercrime Scheme

Five alleged members of the infamous Scattered Spider cybercrime crew have been indicted in the U.S. for targeting employees of companies across the country using social engineering techniques to harvest credentials and using them to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data and break into crypto accounts to steal digital assets worth millions of dollars. All […]

Cyber News
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  • November 21, 2024

Google’s AI-Powered OSS-Fuzz Tool Finds 26 Vulnerabilities in Open-Source Projects

Google has revealed that its AI-powered fuzzing tool, OSS-Fuzz, has been used to help identify 26 vulnerabilities in various open-source code repositories, including a medium-severity flaw in the OpenSSL cryptographic library. “These particular vulnerabilities represent a milestone for automated vulnerability finding: each was found with AI, using AI-generated and enhanced fuzz targets,” 

Cyber News
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  • November 21, 2024

NodeStealer Malware Targets Facebook Ad Accounts, Harvesting Credit Card Data

Threat hunters are warning about an updated version of the Python-based NodeStealer that’s now equipped to extract more information from victims’ Facebook Ads Manager accounts and harvest credit card data stored in web browsers. “They collect budget details of Facebook Ads Manager accounts of their victims, which might be a gateway for Facebook malvertisement,” Netskope […]

Cyber News
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  • November 21, 2024

Smashing Security podcast #394: Digital arrest scams and stream-jacking

In our latest episode we discuss how a woman hid under the bed after scammers told her she was under “digital arrest”, how hackers are hijacking YouTube channels through malicious sponsorship deals, and how one phone company is turning the tables on fraudsters through deepfake AI. All this and much more is discussed in the […]

Cyber News
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  • November 20, 2024

Steve Bellovin’s Retirement Talk

Steve Bellovin is retiring. Here’s his retirement talk, reflecting on his career and what the cybersecurity field needs next.  

Cyber News