- French army will employ sci-fi writers to predict cyber threats
July 22, 2019
The French military is to assemble a team of science fiction writers to imagine possible future cyber threats and inject innovation into cyber defence. This will be a small group, known as the “Red Team” which will be comprised of four or five science fiction writers and or futurists. The team will be hired to “propose ...
- Cyberwarfare in space: Satellites at risk of hacker attacks
July 2, 2019
There’s an urgent need for NATO and its member countries to address the cybersecurity of space-based satellite control systems because they’re vulnerable to cyberattacks – and if left unaddressed, it could have severe consequences for global security, a new paper from a major thinktank on international affairs has warned. Almost all modern military engagements rely on space-based assets, ...
- Germany and the Netherlands to build the first ever joint military internet
June 28, 2019
Government officials from Germany and the Netherlands have signed an agreement this week to build the first-ever joint military internet. The accord was signed on Wednesday in Brussels, Belgium, where NATO defense ministers met this week. The name of this new Dutch-German military internet is the Tactical Edge Networking, or TEN, for short. This is the first time ...
- US launches cyber-attack aimed at Iranian rocket and missile systems
June 24, 2019
The US has responded to a recent rise in Iranian cyber-activity and the shooting of an unarmed drone last week by launching cyber-attacks against Iran’s military IT systems. The cyber-attacks were carried out by US Cyber Command with the direct approval of US President Donald Trump, the Associated Press reported on Sunday, citing two inside sources, and ...
- Russian military moves closer to replacing Windows with Astra Linux
May 30, 2019
Russian authorities have moved closer to implementing their plan of replacing the Windows OS on military systems with a locally-developed operating system named Astra Linux. Last month, the Russian Federal Service for Technical and Export Control (FSTEC) granted Astra Linux the security clearance of “special importance,” which means the OS can now be used to handle Russian ...
- This malware campaign is targeting the military with phony emails from a defence contractor
April 16, 2019
The Ukrainian government and military is being targeted with spear-phishing attacks as part of a cyber-espionage operation based around dropping powerful malware. These phishing attacks have been detailed by researchers at cybersecurity firm FireEye, who identified malicious emails being sent to Ukrainian military departments in January this year. The malware is being sent, presumably, with the aim of monitoring ...
- NASA’s crap infosec could be ‘significant threat’ to space ops
March 11, 2019
NASA’s Office of the Inspector General has once again concluded the American space agency’s tech security practices are “not consistently implemented”. Confirmation that the US government department’s infosec abilities are not up to scratch was a repeat of last year’s federally mandated security audit, which also found that processes and procedures were below par. Oversight personnel from ...
- Citrix Data Breach – Iranian Hackers Stole 6TB of Sensitive Data
March 11, 2019
Popular enterprise software company Citrix that provides services to the U.S. military, the FBI, many U.S. corporations, and various U.S. government agencies disclosed last weekend a massive data breach of its internal network by “international cyber criminals.” Citrix said it was warned by the FBI on Wednesday of foreign hackers compromising its IT systems and stealing ...
- Researchers Link ‘Sharpshooter’ Cyber Attacks to North Korean Hackers
March 4, 2019
Security researchers have finally, with “high confidence,” linked a previously discovered global cyber espionage campaign targeting critical infrastructure around the world to a North Korean APT hacking group. Thanks to the new evidence collected by researchers after analyzing a command-and-control (C2) server involved in the espionage campaign and seized by law enforcement. Dubbed Operation Sharpshooter, the cyber espionage ...
- Senior Defence figure raises concerns about future cyber attacks
February 19, 2019
One of Australia’s senior military figures says the threat of cyber attacks against the nation’s infrastructure and military networks is on the rise. Major General Marcus Thompson leads the Information Warfare Division, which was set up in mid-2017 with the aim of providing both defensive and offensive cyber capabilities. In his first media major interview, he told ...
- Airbus data breach impacts employees in Europe
January 30, 2019
European aerospace corporation Airbus disclosed today a security breach that impacted its commercial aircraft manufacturing business. The company said the security breach “resulted in unauthorised access to data.” According to a press release published earlier today, Airbus said that “some personal data was accessed,” but “mostly professional contact and IT identification details of some Airbus employees in Europe.” Read more… Source: ...
- Army ready to embrace AI
January 11, 2019
Army’s acquisition organization is still working out its IT strategy, but it has laser focus on weaving artificial intelligence into the force. Army acquisition head, Bruce Jette told reporters at the Defense Writers Group breakfast Jan. 10 in Washington, D.C., that while the department isn’t where he’d like it to be, the ultimate goal is to ...
- NASA discloses data breach
December 19, 2018
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) admitted today to getting hacked earlier this year. In an internal memo sent to all employees, the agency said that an unknown intruder gained access to one of its servers storing the personal data of current and former employees. Social Security numbers were also compromised, NASA said. The agency ...
- DOD doesn’t keep track of duplicate or obsolete software
December 18, 2018
The US Marine Corps, the Navy, and the Air Force are not keeping track of their software inventories, according to a report released today by the US Department of Defense Inspector General (DOD IG). Auditors said management at many services part of these three military branches “did not consistently rationalize their software applications” leading to situations where they ...
- Cyber security breaches rising across UK defence sector
December 18, 2018
UK defence secrets are increasingly being exposed to hostile nation states after the number of security breaches in the sector rose this year. Heavily-redacted records obtained by Sky News show an increase in incidents reported to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) between January and October compared to the same period in 2017. Sky News previously revealed the ...
- Operation Sharpshooter Uses Fileless Malware to Attack Global Infrastructure
December 12, 2018
The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team detected a malware campaign dubbed Operation Sharpshooter which attacked nuclear, defense, energy, and financial targets from all over the world. As detailed by McAfee’s research team, the campaign dubbed “Operation Sharpshooter” makes use of an in-memory essential to download and execute a second stage payload named Rising Sun. Moreover, the Rising Sun implant ...
- U.S. Military Members Catfished and Hooked for Thousands of Dollars
December 3, 2018
Prisoners in South Carolina posed convincingly as beautiful women on social media platforms. A sextortion ring that aimed “catfish” efforts at U.S. military service members has been uncovered. The scam bilked 442 service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps out of more than $560,000. An 11-month investigation, dubbed “Operation Surprise Party” and carried ...
- GSA proposes new cybersecurity reporting rules for contractors
November 19, 2018
The General Services Administration is proposing new rules shaping how contractors protect government information on the IT systems they manage. Tucked in a Friday Federal Register post detailing the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, two proposed rules — GSAR Case 2016-G511 and 2016-G515 — call for amending the General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation to include ...
- US Cyber Command starts uploading foreign APT malware to VirusTotal
November 8, 2018
On Monday, the Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), a subordinate unit of US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), set in motion a new initiative through which the DOD would share malware samples it discovered on its networks with the broader cybersecurity community. The CNMF kicked off this new project by creating an account on VirusTotal, an online file scanning service that ...
- Hack the Air Force 3.0 Bug Bounty Announced by USAF
November 6, 2018
The Hack the Air Force 3.0 bug bounty program organized in collaboration with HackerOne has been announced by the U.S. Air Force to take place from October 19 to November 5. “Up to 600 eligible applicants will be invited to participate in the challenge. Invitations will be issued to eligible participants during the challenge at regular ...