Category: Cybersecurity

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Cyber Security of Weaponized Media in a Socially Engineered World

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I.     Introduction

The world is seeing an ongoing multi-faceted cyber attack(s) (social engineering) that uses weaponized fake media, digital false flags and other digitally obfuscated materials. These attacks stem from nation states, paid hacker cartels and mercenary hackers globally. These cyber security attacks utilize social engineering, weaponized media and fake media. We have been studying these socially engineered attacks since 2009, and have created unique responses to them.

II.    Main body

The Green Revolution of 2009 in Iran marked the first known use of weaponized social media. The Government of Iran utilized Twitter to get western citizens to spread their propaganda.

Fast forward to 2016, where USA itself was attacked through long term, dedicated weaponized media cyber assault on our democracy; and government alike by Russia and its agents. This attack continues with multi-faceted usage of fake media, bots, fake social media and malware laden content on these sites.

The final outcome is still under investigation, but it is seen as a major win for Russia intelligence groups, and a major loss for the USA.

In the 2016 attack on the USA, innocent citizens were co-opted to spread weaponized media that had either been previously illegally exfiltrated or was fake to begin with.

Some might say this is a soft attack, not vitally important as a hard cyber attack on a network, grid or infrastructure, that is simply not true.

In fact, these attacks are proving to be just as lethal as more traditional cyber attacks. Socially engineered attacks often mask other types of attacks as well – like DDoS, MiTM and malware/wipeware.

However, socially engineered attacks now account for more than 50% of the beginnings of all cyber security intrusions and breaches.

                                                                              III.   Conclusions/future steps

How does USA protect itself from such asymmetrical attacks in future?

With explosion of IoT Devices has come a parallel explosion of attack surface areas, many of which are simply not protected.

With the explosion of social media platforms and content being shared has come a parallel explosion of attack surface areas, most of which are not secured or protected. But many social media users operate under a belief that they are fine because “the big companies are protecting us.”

This is a false belief, and users, both government and individual need to take drastic steps to protect these accounts and platforms.

Should the USA Government sponsor Human/digital trainings to help protect and defend against socially engineered attacks?

How do regular people tell difference between real media/faked media? How do leaders weed out bots, automated accounts from real?

What steps can USA take today; tomorrow to prevent ongoing and future socially engineered cyber attacks?

 

 

Based on proprietary research at www.digijaks.com and through extensive work with clients who are dealing with and or have dealt with such attacks.

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Digijaks CEO Alan W. Silberberg Interviewed by Associated Press about HBO Hack

 

2 Cyber security expert says HBO hack is huge (2)

See the video below.

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Modern Information Warfare Hits Hard

2016 was just the latest in #cyberwar; and #informationwarfare attacks where even bills were introduced in Congress. It has been ongoing as long as there have been digital mediums and technologies; and information distribution technology. My company saw it happening last year and got more and more concerned as the election grew closer. We literally wrote letters to people in government, people at the DNC and elsewhere, basically yelling as loudly as we could that the #USA was being cyber and information warfare attacked.

 

As a cyber security, and weaponized information expert – it was all too clear what was happening. It has left a feeling of being sick in the stomach for a year now, and this feeling has not abated. Because it has not ended. For millions of Americans and millions of people around the world too.

 

The Unites States is witnessing both the worst and best it can show at once. The worst by all the traitors amongst us: those pretending we were not just victims of a non lethal act of war.

 

The best by all those in and out of government banding together to excise the cancer from the nation; regardless of the risks and dangers.

 

Some cyber and information warfare players have been better than others. Some have taken a longer term perspective than others. Nation states that have invested heavily into cyber technologies and offensive information warfare technologies are multiplying every year.

 

It is not just the domain of: Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, Ukraine, the UK, France, USA and other large or technologically advanced countries. It is now the domain of any country who decides to invest in the people and the technology and take a longer term view than the average hacker for hire.

 

Sun Tzu believed that “all warfare is deception,” — but where does that leave the average person; who does not understand they are caught up in forces through control of information; that they can neither understand or ever hope to control?

 

I spoke at the US Army CyberTalks in NYC in 2016 on “Global Cyber Security on Earth and in Space.”

One of the points I made; was that almost all of our lives are not just locked up in databases in offices or on the cloud somewhere. But indeed, flying through the ether every millisecond of our lives. Hundreds of companies; and dozens or more countries have the capabilities to hack into it, to manipulate it, change it and even delete. 24 hours a day, with lots and lots of ways for data to be intercepted, changed, made into FUD. (Look it up – means F*#$ed Up Data) – or just simply deleted. Not to mention when the data flying through the ether becomes weaponized by either a Nation State or a Company or a bad actor group or individual with ill intent.

The implications on the types of information warfare that Russia is enacting on the US and the Western Coalitions; is that it is multi level, persistent, and consistent. It is coming in through a combination of weaponized social media, fake websites, fake news, automated bots as well as hacking, intrusions and exfiltrations of data that then become weaponized. It is happening in multiple countries, with a huge budget and thousands of people behind the execution of it. This was the path the Russians took in 2016: a multi pronged effort, all across the United States, focused on Federal, State, and Local authorities. This included national and state political leaders, parties and their allies, as well as election vendors and election technology across the spectrum.

To be extremely clear, the efforts that Russia leveraged as non lethal acts of War against the USA – are still ongoing. They never stopped. Indeed, 2016 was just a continuation of Russia’s long game in cyber and information warfare.

So now we need to take action steps as a country to come together. We need to put aside political partisanship and simply deal with what we have to deal with in terms of investigations and cleaning house. Of all those who played a role in the greatest act of treason since Benedict Arnold tried to give West Point to the King’s Army. All of the people in the United States who played any part in supporting this treasonous Act of War should pay.

Just like General Arnold did.

This is a time for the decision to be made. Are you Partisan, and metaphorically selling out West Point by supporting those who sold out the USA to Russia?

Or are you a Patriot — and going to fight for your country to not disappear by virtue of some digital exhaust of ongoing, persistent information warfare + cyberwar?

Nathan Hale was America’s first spy to be killed in action. When being hanged by the British – he is reported to have said this most famous quote: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Hopefully none of us have to be in such a dangerous position. But we are in a place in history where Patriots are already at work, saving our country.

What are you?

 

*When your kids ask you what you did to stop this non lethal act of war, what will you say?*

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Digijaks CEO Speech at US Army CyberTalks NYC

 

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#CyberSecurity #DigitalDiplomacy 2017

#Digitaldiplomacy and #Cybersecurity on a Rough Patch in 2017.

The last several years have seen an explosion of digital diplomacy tools and techniques. This is driven by an ongoing growth in technology platforms; and social media combined with the increased numbers of world Governments adopting open data and open government principles. There has also been a parallel explosion in fake social media, fake news and fake information being propagated globally.

The effect of the combined forces is that cybersecurity is now playing an even more vital role in digital diplomacy. Where digital diplomacy just a few years back was between recognized principals of Governments, now there are lots of other players trying to make that communication much more failure prone.

Additionally we now have leaders using Twitter and other tools to communicate directly with each other and or to directly go around the news media.  Just in the first few months of 2017 alone, we have witnessed multiple world leaders using Twitter to speak in ways that are different from the stated policies of their countries, or to put pressure on other countries through this most public of mediums.

There have been recent successes and failures. I wrote about some of these a few years back. We have also seen a tremendous growth in what I call “anti digital diplomacy” thru the concerted use of fake social media accounts, fake news websites, and fake statistics designed to make the role of real diplomats much harder.  While some of this is innocuous, much of it is organized and part of larger cyber deception plots being run by larger nation states.

Western European countries are currently experiencing the same types of digital attacks on their electoral systems, including the use of selective leaking of compromised materials that the US experienced in 2016. Which means that hacking, and hackers have been deeply involved too. One does not get compromised materials without someone first doing the exfiltration of the information from its original home.

Which brings the question of what role cybersecurity needs to play in digital diplomacy? It is a dynamic situation now with asymmetrical threats and increased attack surface area affecting the very direct communications that digital diplomacy allows.

Governments, Diplomats and the media alike need to be trained and continually updated on how to spot fake accounts, fake news, fake websites, and how to ensure only officially verified information is being transmitted through the digital diplomacy channels. Additionally steps need to be taken on dealing with constituents and the news media to ensure that fake information is put down quickly with the truth and facts to back it up.

Diplomats across the globe have already been caught up in re-tweeting fake news or getting trolled by fake accounts. But there needs to be a verification role too, that is played with the public, especially in terms of proving the falsity of fake information being purposely distributed.

Further, steps need to be taken to lock down accounts with two factor authentication, very strong passwords and strict internal organizational controls on who uses the digital diplomacy tools and how.  Cybersecurity needs to be incorporated into every decision and every level of communications, both internally and externally.

Finally, Governments and Companies around the world need to adopt a rapid response routine to deal with both fake news and fake information coming from non-official sources, as well as from official sources or official twitter accounts. The World now has several leaders who seem to want to try to use Twitter to go around their local politics and news media and or tell the world an un-true or incoherent story. If Diplomats are not ready to respond to falsities or cyber-attack driven leaks quickly, then they will be playing a constant game of catch up. True for the news media and global citizens alike.

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Talk at GEOINT 2016 by DIGIJAKS CEO

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Global Cyber Security On Earth + in Space

Networx

**Excerpt from a talk by Digijaks CEO Alan W. Silberberg at the 2016 GEOINT Symposium.**

When you think of Cyber Security you probably think about your iphone getting hacked, or your email, or your companies servers, or your credit card, or bank card or health care, or banking, or government information plus so many others…

But did you ever stop to think about how a huge chunk of all the data populating all those things actually gets there? Not in the sense of how Google asks prospective employees to describe how the internet works. But close. Think Space.

Satellites are massive growth industry, for both government and business alike. We have scaled globally from a situation 20 years ago where only a handful of countries could afford to mount in orbit operations on even one satellite.

Now there are literally thousands of satellites in space with more and more getting launched into either permanent or semi permanent orbits — along with resulting real space junk and debris following closely along.

There is a correlation of increased launches with smaller launch packages, increasingly smaller and lighter satellite platforms and lower cost; with massive increased consumption and transport of data in both up and down link; and other bands.

All of this has led to a reset of the cyber security needs surrounding ground stations, launch facilities, terrestrial platforms, satellites, rockets, and of course the data. There are multiple types of data flowing into the typical modern communications satellite. Up-link, down-link controls and management software, then data payloads of voice, video, data, etc + then often reversed in direction again. Add to this the security levels, the control levels and maintenance levels — and there is a digital river of information coming in and out of every satellite, ground station and in between.

This is one of the major targets for global cyber war efforts by governments as well as cartel hacker groups and other groups seeking only power and information to then bring money.

One of the key weakpoints is the people on the ground and their BYOD (Bring your own device) methods + practices – whether sanctioned or not.

Along the same lines is the social engineering side of hacking and cyber war and how people’s pictures, social media posts, location tags, and other digital exhausts can be combined in a detailed matrix for an attacker to figure out organizational patterns, phrases, colloquialisms and other ways to use psychology against us.

Another key weakpoint is that many of the cyber security protocols designed for this global data transfer every milli-second is that they are simply outdated and not up to the task of modern efforts to hack and crack this technology and its safeguards and firewalls.

Follow my remarks in a few more weeks to hear more on the very real risks being posed by the explosion in satellites and data flowing between Earth and Space. Indeed, Global Cyber Security is on Earth + Space.

 

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#panamapapers + Reputation Control + Cyber Security

Reputation Control and Reputation Management
Cyber Security, Social Media, You.

The Panama Papers as released this past week are a really huge data dump, in fact one much larger in scale than that of Wikileaks, and the largest to date in history.

The project that resulted in this massive public disclosure, was essentially a cyber security lapse leading to a breach.  Following the breach, data exfiltration was executed through leveraging a long known critical failure in the operating system and email servers that were used by the law firm, Mossack Fonseca.

Not only are the Panama Papers a stunning example of a hack that resulted in massive  data exfiltration; thus consequently leading to a global reputation breach. But they are also representative of a slow to change cyber security environment in law firms, corporations and organizations globally.

Drupal, a widely used language for databases and other programs has been constantly been providing critical updates since it’s inception. Users of Drupal have to make the choice to keep their systems up to date, or as in this case, not.

The utter lack of cyber security protocols like updating a server, or dealing with over 25 issued critical updates to the operating system/servers bring to mind other major hacks like the Target Corporation hack where 60,000 alerts were ignored by corporate IT staff. This is the opposite of what cyber security protocols would dictate.

Law firm IT staff need to be amongst the first to adopt these basics; but often times are not, and many international law firms have mediocre to poor network security. In that area, the Panama Papers could be any law firm, anywhere. The reputation loss suffered by the cyber security lapse and breach could be any law firm’s clients, anywhere.

Digijaks has been working with clients for years to address the undeniable link between cyber security and reputation control. The Panama Papers simply serve as one more reason why these issues are so connected and so important to both people and organizations.

 

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Cybersecurity Dilemna -A Conundrum-

Reputation Control and Reputation Management

 

co·nun·drum
kəˈnəndrəm/
noun
noun: conundrum; plural noun: conundrums

a confusing and difficult problem or question.
“one of the most difficult conundrums for the experts”

This is the conundrum of the digital age.

One one hand executives of a company will be the first to state they think their systems are secure, and if there are any problems they are small.

or

Maybe they think their information, data and business relationships are not important to hackers because, “too small”, “not on radar screen”, or “we have nothing worth taking.”

But both of these are clearly conundrums:

  • The first is pretty basic, if you think you are secure but have not brought in outsiders to test your systems and people and facilities, then how do you know?
  • The second is also pretty basic, if you think you have nothing to lose, then you might not take stringent security steps necessary, thus making your organization ever more vulnerable.

But- and this is actually more like a because — Organizations have to think and act pro-actively when it comes to cyber security and privacy. True for people too. If you think you have no cyber weaknesses than you do. If you think you have nothing to lose, than you do. If you think no one is interested in your organization because it is too small or not on the radar screen, than you are wrong, and they are.

Now is actually the time to assess your organization’s situation, and that of your people too. Do it now before you get hacked or breached. Because you will get hacked or breached. Be prepared. Don’t be caught behind a truck that just ran over your business and people.

My company Digijaks sees a lot of these types of issues with clients. Preventive medicine works, in healthcare and cyber security. Both need daily hygiene and maintenance and both also need updates, checkins and repair work too.

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Reputation Cyber Security of IoT.

Ah, the Internet of Things.

Just the sound of it sends thrills, chills and huge question marks through both technologists and regular people alike.

Just think, you can already do the following:

  • Track your health.
  • Track your kids.
  • Track your home.
  • Talk to your fridge.
  • Talk to your car.
  • Have your fridge, oven, and tv connected to your smartphone, not to mention the video doorbell.

I could go on with this list. But why bother?

The Internet of Things, or IOT as it is called in the media, by analysts and techies alike is an amorphous concept and does not easily translate into everyday speak for the average person.

There are cybersecurity concerns with the overlapping inter-connectedness that are growing exponentially by the month; as more and more devices come on line, get connected to the Internet. Many if not most have little to zero security protocols built in.

There is no current “IOT cybersecurity standard” or anything close. As a result, the apps and tools that seemingly make your life so easy, are in most probability leaking, if not pouring personal information about you or your family onto the internet in ways you may or may not be aware of.

There are reputation control and reputation management issues arising from both the above mentioned inter-connectedness as well as from some basic common sense things that come from having devices connected to the Internet and talking to “home” or each other in ways that also reveal identity, location and other personal information. Some of these IOT apps and tools even tweet or post other social updates for you as reminders, alerts and other pushed out information into public or semi public arenas.

So ask yourself 5 Major IOT for Reputation Questions:

  1. Does everything have to be connected to everything and what happens with a point of failure or with multiple points?
  2. Even if you want to track your whole life, does it need tracking?
  3. Does the good of the device in your life outweigh the bad of the cybersecurity or reputation risks?
  4. Do your kids’ need this tracking on them and beyond knowing where they are, do you want your kids’ information in companies with weak or zero cybersecurity protections?
  5. Do you want your kids’ information broadcast out to the Internet because of auto update or bot tweeting something?
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