EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures has made its most significant long-term alliance in China since Viacom chief Shari Redstone nixed a 49% stake sale to Dalian Wanda for $4.9 billion last year. The studio has closed deals with Shanghai Film Group Corp and Beijing-based Huahua Media for those companies to fund 25% or more of the studio’s entire film slate for the next three years, with an option for a fourth. Continue reading
Washington Free Beacon senior editor Bill Gertz said that the United States is “extremely vulnerable” to cyber attacks during a radio interview with Sean Hannity on Tuesday evening. Gertz appeared on Hannity’s radio show to discuss his newly released book, iWar: War and Peace in the Information Age.
To begin the interview, Hannity asked Gertz what he thought of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s assertion that he did not receive hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign from Russian sources.
“We’re going to have to wait to see what the [Obama] administration’s investigation of the Russian influence operation is,” Gertz responded. Continue reading
‘We have to get the budget out there to stay ahead of this because otherwise it’s gonna have a major impact’
The Israeli military made (air)waves last week when it announced that it was installing cyber defenses on its F-35 jets. While this may seem like a futuristic concept, it’s actually long overdue from an online security standpoint.
“Bad actors were already doing bad things on the internet before the military caught up with technology,” Richard Blech, founder and CEO of the cybersecurity firm Secure Channels, told the Observer. Continue reading
Amid all the noise the Sony hack generated over the holidays, a far more troubling cyber attack was largely lost in the chaos. Unless you follow security news closely, you likely missed it.
I’m referring to the revelation, in a German report released just before Christmas (.pdf), that hackers had struck an unnamed steel mill in Germany. They did so by manipulating and disrupting control systems to such a degree that a blast furnace could not be properly shut down, resulting in “massive”—though unspecified—damage. Continue reading
As also mentioned here, it’s absolutely naïve to believe only N. Korea or Iran are possibly involved. Russia and China have more sophisticated and highly trained personnel than both nations, yet could’ve been trained or given Russian/Chinese personnel to carry out the dirty work on their soil as to have the trail lead only back to Iran and N. Korea in order to mask the true origins.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. investigation into the recent hacking attack at Sony Pictures Entertainment has turned up evidence that does not point to North Korea as the “sole entity” in the case, but rather, raises the possibility that Iran, China or Russia may have been involved, an intelligence source told Fox News on Thursday.
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The source pointed to the sophistication of malware “modules or packets” that destroyed the Sony systems — on a level that has not been seen from North Korea in the past — but has been seen from Iran, China and Russia.
There is no evidence of a forced entry into the Sony systems, pointing to an insider threat or stolen credentials. And the first emails sent to Sony, described as blackmail or extortion, included demands unrelated to the movie. Continue reading
If you’ve been following Global Geopolitics for a while, you will have come to the realization long ago that America is prepared for absolutely nothing.
The unintelligent community doesn’t even know what hit them until it’s too late. The political ‘leadership’ conducts hearings and continues to make warnings on taking action and implementing plans, but it never comes to fruition. The public for the most part doesn’t care so long as the shopping malls still remain open so they can scavenge like cockroaches through cheap plastic goods made in China.
America is in freefall in so many ways, the sword is coming to it (see also HERE), and no one except for a handful of people are really paying attention – and then a small fraction of that same handful dare to raise awareness like is done here.
God help America.
A file-wiping attack such as the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack could bring major federal departments to their knees, because most have no data-loss contingency plans, according to the latest figures on compliance with government cybersecurity laws.
Further, unplugging systems to contain damage, as Sony did, would impair an agency’s ability to carry out constitutional duties, some former federal cyber leaders say.
While it is debatable whether North Korea, unaffiliated hacktivists seizing an opportunity or another entity is ransacking the entertainment behemoth’s networks, one thing is clear: Sony had shoddy disaster response procedures.
The attack reportedly used so-called wiper malicious code that destroys files. After the first signs of a breach in late November, Sony officials told employees to disconnect machines from the corporate network. Continue reading
At least five new movies from Sony Pictures are being devoured on copyright-infringing file-sharing hubs online in the wake of the hack attack that hobbled the studio earlier in the week.
Copies of DVD screeners of four unreleased Sony movies including the upcoming “Annie” are getting some unwelcome early exposure, but nothing compared to the frenzy enveloping “Fury,” the war pic still in theaters since bowing last month.
“Fury” has been downloaded by over 888,000 unique IP addresses since showing up on peer-to-peer networks on Nov. 27, according to piracy tracking firm Excipio. That’s high enough to be the second most downloaded movie currently being pirated, and it’s not out of movie theaters yet. Continue reading
Absolutely nothing electronic is safe anymore. It’s not yet clear who may be behind this attack, but it’s clear the Russians and Chinese could shut America down if they wanted — and they eventually will as it’s not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’.
2ND UPDATE: This Sony computer hacking episode isn’t over. The corporation’s computers are still down, in New York, overseas and on the Culver City lot of Sony Pictures, for the second day. IT experts are still working to figure out how the breach happened, and to stop a repeat. It is never opportune for something like this to interrupt a corporation’s hard work, but Thanksgiving week is probably not the worst time for it. Here’s the official line: “Sony Pictures Entertainment experienced a system disruption, which are working diligently to resolve.” Continue reading
The hacker group known as LulzSec appears to be back after many months of laying low, claiming to have exposed the accounts of nearly 171,000 members of the military.
The group, which in 2011 went after government agencies and companies including the FBI, CIA, Sony and the Public Broadcasting Service, claims to have exposed the email accounts of thousands of members on the website MilitarySingles.com.
“There are emails such as @us.army.mil; @carney.navy.mil; @greatlakes.cnet.navy.mil; @microsoft.com; etc.,” the group said in a note posted on the website PasteBin.
The group said it dumped a database including a total of 170,937 email accounts from the website, which bills itself as “the dating site for single soldiers.”
Full story: Hackers Claim To Have Exposed 170,000 Military Email Accounts (Business Insider)
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