ITACS 5211: Introduction to Ethical Hacking
Wade Mackey
https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/iranian-nation-state-hacker-indicted-for-hbo-hack-extortion/d/d-id/1330474
An Iranian hacker was indicted for an attack against HBO in early 2017. He reportedly extorted the data for $6 million in bitcoin. The hacker made away with scripts, employee emails, proprietary information and tv episodes. Some of this data was leaked online. While he has not been arrested, the indictment will restrict his freedom
If you’re not aware of Shodan, it is a search engine for IoT devices. It allows you to search across publicly accessible devices worldwide. You can use this to search your own network for exposed devices, or just dig around the internet looking for things. It’s a pretty interesting tool. It also includes and API for integration with nmap/metasploit/web browsers.
A standard membership is 49$ lifetime but this coming weekend will be down to 5$ (I also think you can get a free upgrade using an .edu account, don’t quote me on that).
Yes, we're having a black friday sale 🙂 $5 Shodan Membership instead of $49 and it will run from Friday through Monday
— Shodan (@shodanhq) November 21, 2017
An analysis done by Cryen researchers looked at 10.3 million Office 365 emails, revealing that 9.3% were unfiltered spam and contained malware and phishing information. While a small percentage was zero-day unknown malware, many common malware signatures were let through. Microsoft’s filtering is based on off the information they hold is databases to whatever I unknown to them is let through the content filters. The article then encourages the use of comprehensive whitelisting within a corporate environment to help mitigate this risk.
https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/office-365-missed-34000-phishing-emails-last-month/d/d-id/1330282
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/technology/kaspersky-lab-israel-russia-hacking.html?_r=1
The Kaspersky Lab’s issue has grown in complexity and layers. It’s now known Israeli Intelligence was watching Russian Intelligence monitoring American Intelligence programs. Initially it was discovered that the Russian FSB had intercepted American NSA malware and data from security contractors using Kaspersky antivirus. Then it came out that American intelligence was given the heads up by Israeli forces who has infiltrated the Russians and Kaspersky, and were watching the data gathered by FSB. This story continues to grow, and is an interesting reminder of the reach of security intelligence across the globe.
Equifax has had a great many blunders over the past month. Newest on the pile is the discovery Equifax’s customer service portal served up malware to users. 3rd party code embedded in the page prompted users for an update to adobe flash, which when downloaded was spyware. The page has since been taken down and remains so.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/equifax-credit-assistance-site-served-spyware/