FBI warns that hackers are targeting state election systems

Voter registration databases from two states were reportedly targeted in the hacks

The FBI has reportedly found evidence that foreign hackers breached two state election databases in recent weeks.

An FBI alert warning election officials about the breach was leaked, and it was posted in a report by Yahoo News on Monday. Voter registration databases from both Illinois and Arizona were targeted in the hacks, according to the report.

Hackers sold access to 170,000 compromised servers, many in the U.S.

New data paints a much darker picture of the underground market for hacked servers.

The market for hacked servers might be much larger than previously thought, with new evidence suggesting that hackers sold access to over 170,000 compromised servers since 2014, a third of them located in the U.S.

The new revelation comes from antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, whose researchers reported last week that a black market website called xDedic was selling remote access to more than 70,000 compromised servers for as little as US$6.

Iran expands cyber warfare forces, attacks critical Western infrastructure

Amid Iran’s recent demonstration of its military capabilities including the test-firing of ballistic missiles, which have drawn harsh criticism in the West and resulted in economic sanctions, a group of cyber warfare experts under the direct command of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has significantly increased its operations in recent months.

The fingerprints of the hacker organization that calls itself “Rocket Kitten”, whose IP addresses lead directly to Iranian army command, were discovered again on Tuesday, this time within the computer control system of one of the most sensitive infrastructure facilities in Central Europe.

South Korea Suffered 114,000 Cyberattacks in Five Years

For a very informative perspective on how often and to which magnitude cyberattacks are happening worldwide, and especially against the United States, see the following live map linked from another post:

America: In the Cybercrosshairs

 

South Korea has announced that its government institutions have suffered more than 114,000 cyber attacks since 2011.

The figures were published on Friday in a report by the country’s National Assembly’s Public Administration & Security Committee, technology news site CNET reported. The committee found that 114,035 cyber attacks, ranging from attempts to access classified information to leaking sensitive data, had been recorded between 2011 and June 2015. Less than one percent of the total attacks originated from IP addresses in North Korea.

My life as a pro-Putin propagandist in Russia’s secret ‘troll factory’

When Lyudmila Savchuk heard about the assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov earlier this year she was shocked and saddened.

“I felt the bullets between my own shoulders,” she said, recalling how the Kremlin critic was gunned down near Moscow’s Red Square in February.

Yet within hours of Mr Nemtsov’s death, Ms Savchuk and her colleagues were going online to pour bile on the former deputy prime minister and claim he was killed by his own friends rather than by government hitmen, as many suspect.

The War on Cash Is Going Completely Nuts in Europe

Austria is where the Sovereign Debt Crisis began with a bank failure in 1931. Today, Austria continues to have a raging controversy over the abolition of bank secrecy. Just look at how far they are going against the citizens because of bank mismanagement, once again, and it is scaring the hell out of a lot of people behind the curtain. The government is monitoring taxpayers in a manner that will lead to the elimination of all private rights in the future. They are now introducing new laws, which forces all taxpayers to submit their fingerprints, as well as their IP e-mail addresses, to the tax office so that the government can track every piece of loose change.

Exclusive – Iran hackers may target U.S. energy, defence firms, FBI warns

Another day, another cyber attack. What’s more alarming at the moment however isn’t clear:

• The fact that the public is becoming callous after being constantly inundated by stories of another attack each day, thinking tomorrow will be the same as today.
• The fact that the intelligence community is seemingly always behind on the extent of the damage or how deep America’s adversaries have actually penetrated.
• The fact that nothing is done in retaliation when it’s a known fact who’s behind the attacks.

Perhaps the answer is D), all of the above. Sadly, much of the American public isn’t even aware of what’s happening or the threat it poses.

 

BOSTON (Reuters) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned U.S. businesses to be on the alert for a sophisticated Iranian hacking operation whose targets include defence contractors, energy firms and educational institutions, according to a confidential agency document.

The operation is the same as one flagged last week by cyber security firm Cylance Inc as targeting critical infrastructure organizations worldwide, cyber security experts said. Cylance has said it uncovered more than 50 victims from what it dubbed Operation Cleaver, in 16 countries, including the United States.

The FBI’s confidential “Flash” report, seen by Reuters on Friday, provides technical details about malicious software and techniques used in the attacks, along with advice on thwarting the hackers. It asked businesses to contact the FBI if they believed they were victims.