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Friday Morning: It’s Five Somewhere

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This week has been really long. Painfully dragged out. Mid-week snowstorm probably didn’t help. But here we are, survivors with another week and yet another Presidential campaign debate under our belts.

I’ll keep it short and snappy given how much ugly we’ve been through.

Your information security is only as good as the stupidest person on staff
“Hello, FBI? I’m new here and I don’t have my code. Can you help a girl out?” No joke, that’s about all it took for one unnamed hacktivist to get inside the FBI. And yet the FBI demands backdoors into all mobile devices. I can’t even…

Meet your new immortal overlord: Your self-driving car
This first graf scares the crap out of me:

The computer algorithms that pilot self-driving cars may soon be considered the functional equivalents of human drivers. That’s the early opinion of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—and so begins our slow-burn acquiescence in the battle of man versus machine.

And not even for the reasons that PC World’s editor-in-chief Jon Phillips outlines in his editorial. If a governmental agency recognizes an algorithm as equal to a human, how long before humans are actually subordinate to artificial intelligence?  It’s bad enough corporations — legal constructs — have nearly the same rights as humans and can live forever. This needs to die on the vine right now — especially since Google is ramping up hiring for its line of self-driving cars.

Speaking of Google…

Busy week on Zika front

Media commentator Douglas Rushkoff interviewed on digital society

You left Facebook in 2013. How is that working out for you?

Professionally, I’m thinking it may be good for one’s career and business to be off social media altogether. Chris Anderson was wrong. “Free” doesn’t lead to anything but more free. Working for free isn’t leverage to do a talk for loads of money; now they even want you to talk for free. What am I supposed to do? Join YouTube and get three cents for every 100,000 views of my video? That is crap; that is insane! …

A worthwhile read, give it a whirl when the dust begins to settle.

Here’s hoping the weekend moves as slowly as this week did. Huli pau!

Thursday: Thunder Much

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[image: Thor's Battle Against the Jötnar by Mårten Eskil Winge, c. 1872, via Wikimedia]

[image: Thor’s Battle Against the Jötnar by Mårten Eskil Winge, c. 1872, via Wikimedia]

It’s Thor’s Day, the Norse god of thunder’s day. This dude has a really poor selection of images available until the 20th century, and most are commercial. Doesn’t say much about his powers, does it.

Speaking of powers, mine are tapped out. I have a massive, partially-completed timeline on the Flint water crisis scheduled to post at 9:00 a.m. EST. When you see it, you’ll understand why my thunder’s depleted. I’ll throw a couple eye-catching items here for now; use this as an open thread.

In case I forget: Skål!

North Korean military chief executed for corruption
NK’s execution of Army General Ri Yong-Gil seems really oddly timed within a week of NK’s satellite launch. Makes one wonder if the launch and the execution were related. The termination is attributed to Kim Jong-Un’s continued efforts at retaining power.

Hundreds of thousands of stolen Social Security numbers used to attack IRS
Where the heck did hackers get 464,000 Social Security numbers? And how the heck did they use 101,000 of them to hammer away at the IRS to obtain e-pin number for filings? The IRS says no one’s personal taxpayer data has been compromised, nor were any filings messed up in this automated mass attack last month.

Comcast pleads with ISP customers in Atlanta
Looks like somebody’s nervous about Google Fiber coming to Atlanta, cutting into their broadband market. A pity, that, should have offered better customer service and more competitive pricing. If Comcast had already delivered these, there’d be no reason for Google to bother in that market.

Absolut-ly profitable year ahead for Pernod Ricard
Huh. I guess it makes sense, with the world in such upheaval that booze would be profitable. Pernod Ricard’s projections of one to three percent growth this year remain unchanged as the second-largest distiller in the world names a new leader for its North American business.

By Thor’s hammer…it’s tequila time somewhere. What’s the old Norse word for booze?

Wednesday Morning: Ashes to Ashes

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It’s your second morning-after this week, this one launching the countdown on Christian calendars to Easter. I’m a lapsed Catholic, but we do observe Lent in my household. My agnostic son resists, but I’ve explained this is an opportunity to be mindful about others’ experience of going without. We are privileged to choose to give up, and we consciously recognize it by Lenten observation. Some choices we make, like giving up meat and sugar, are beneficial for us, but it’s still the luxury of choice when others are forced to simply suffer without recourse.

This year we will be mindful of water. We take it for granted every time we turn on the faucet. Yet our brethren go without in nearby Flint, in spite of water’s essential nature to life. I’ll donate the money I would have spent on 46 days of meat-based meals to Flint’s United Way Water Fund and the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan, as both organizations are helping distribute water and filters to Flint residents. Last night’s Boil Water order issued because of a water main break only underlines the difficulties Flint’s residents will face until the entire water system is replaced.

Dept of Duh: Director of National Intelligence says Internet of Things can be used to spy
NO! Say it isn’t so! Like it never occurred to us that any device attached to the internet, including the growing number of WiFi-enabled household appliances, might be used to spy on us.

Volkswagen recalls cars — and not because of emissions
VW didn’t need more trouble; this time, it’s not the German car makers’ fault. 680,000 VW-branded vehicles are being recalled because of Takata-made airbags which may be defective. TAKE NOTE: Mercedes-Benz models were also recalled yesterday.

Toyota, Honda, Acura, BMW, Nissan, Subaru, GM, Ford, Chrysler, and Daimler also issued recalls over the last two years for the very same reason — defective Takata-made airbags. See this article for a running timeline of events related to the recalls as well as a list of affected vehicles (to date).

Attacking the grid? Try a squirrel first – hacking is much harder
A honeypot mimicking an energy management system demonstrated the challenge to hackers trying to crash a power grid. Dewan Chowdhury, MalCrawler’s founder, spoke at Kaspersky Lab security Analyst Summit about the knowledge set needed to attack energy systems:

“It’s extremely difficult. You’ can’t just be a NSA or FSB hacker; you need an electrical engineer on board to weaponize attacks and figure out what’s going on … When it comes to weaponization, you need a power substation engineering who knows what needs to be done and tested.”

After reading about Chowdhury’s presentation, I have two caveats. The first is the notion that an “electrical engineer” or a “power substation engineer” is required. Many non-degreed workers like electricians and technicians are familiar with computers, networks, and SCADA equipment. The second is this bit:

The groups had access to the HMI, which would allow them to manipulate the grid, but Chinese, U.S., and Russian groups, he said, stick to a gentlemen’s agreement and leave the grid alone. Middle Eastern actors, however, will try to perform control actions to sabotage the grid.

A “gentlemen’s agreement”? When do the gloves come off? When one of these actors align with a Middle Eastern actor?

Global disaster — how would you respond?
In case a mess of squirrels are deployed to take down the world’s power grids, one might need to know how to deal with the inevitable meltdown of services. Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies modeled a global disaster in 2013 by way of a simulation game. The results were predictable:

What they discovered was that the country was ill prepared to cope. Within two weeks there would be enormous civilian casualties, a catastrophic breakdown in essential institutions, and mass civil unrest. Food supplies, electricity and transport infrastructures would all collapse.

International security scholar Dr. Nafeez Ahmed was asked how people should respond; he offered a nifty guide, outlined in six points.

But disaster isn’t always global, and current cases show our gross inability to respond to limited disasters. Flint, for example, already struggles with running water, item number three on Dr. Ahmed’s list. Conveniently, Flint doesn’t necessarily rely on government or law enforcement (item number four) because neither responded appropriately to the ongoing water crisis. What remains to be seen is whether Flint will muster long-term self-sufficiency (item number six) as government and law enforcement continue to let them down.

Speaking of Flint, I wonder how today’s Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing on Flint’s water crisis will go, as Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder declined to appear.

“Don’t necessarily trust the government or law enforcement” in global disaster, indeed.

Ukraine’s Power System Hacking: Coordinated in More than One Way?

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[original graphic: outsidethebeltway.com]

[original graphic: outsidethebeltway.com]

Analysis by industrial control team SANS determined hacking of Ukrainian electrical power utilities reported on 23-DEC-2015 was a coordinated attack. It required multiple phases to achieve a sustained loss of electricity to roughly 80,000 customers. SANS reported they “are confident” the following events occurred:

  • The adversary initiated an intrusion into production SCADA systems
  • Infected workstations and servers
  • Acted to “blind” the dispatchers
  • Acted to damage the SCADA system hosts (servers and workstations)
  • Action would have delayed restoration and introduce risk, especially if the SCADA system was essential to coordinate actions
  • Action can also make forensics more difficult
  • Flooded the call centers to deny customers calling to report power out

An investigation is still underway, and the following are still subject to confirmation:

  • The adversaries infected workstations and moved through the environment
  • Acted to open breakers and cause the outage (assessed through technical analysis of the Ukrainian SCADA system in comparison to the impact)
  • Initiated a possible DDoS on the company websites

The part that piques my attention is the defeat of SCADA systems by way of a multiphased attack — not unlike Stuxnet. Hmm…

Another interesting feature of this cyber attack is its location. It’s not near sites of militarized hostilities along the border with Russia. where many are of Russian ethnicity, but in the western portion of Ukraine.

More specifically, the affected power company served the Ivano-Frankivsk region, through which a large amount of natural gas is piped toward the EU. Note the map included above, showing the location and direction of pipelines as well as their output volume. Were the pipelines one of the targets of the cyber attack, along with the electricity generation capacity in the region through which the pipes run? Was this hack planned and coordinated not only to take out power and slow response to the outage but to reduce the pipeline output through Ukraine to the EU?

Internet of Things: Now, with ‘Breachable’ Kids Connect and ‘Hackable’ Barbie

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HelloBarbie

[graphic: Hello Barbie via Mattel’s website]

The Internet of Things (IoT) already includes refrigerators, televisions, slow cookers, automobiles, you name it. Most of these items have already experienced security problems, whether personal information leaks, or manipulative hacking.

Now the IoT includes toys — and wow, what a surprise! They’re riddled with privacy and security problems, too.

Like VTech’s privacy breach, exposing data for more than 6 million children and parents including facial photos and chat logs through its Kids Connect technology. The company’s privacy policy (last archived copy) indicated communications would be encrypted, but the encryption proved whisper thin.

Or Mattel’s Hello Barbie, its Wi-Fi enabled communications at risk for hacking and unauthorized surveillance. The flaws include this doll’s ability to connect to any Wi-Fi network named “Barbie” — it was absolutely brain-dead easy to spoof and begin snooping on anything this doll could “hear.”

It’s amazing these manufacturers ever thought these toys were appropriate for the marketplace, given their target audience. In VTech’s case, it appears to be nearly all ages (its Android app on Google Play is unrated), and in the case of Mattel’s Hello Barbie, it’s primarily girls ages 6-15.

These devices are especially iffy since they tippy-toe along the edge of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (a.k.a. COPPA, 15 U.S.C. 6501–6505).

Parents share much of the blame, too. Most have no clue what or how federal law covers children’s internet use under COPPA, or requirements under the Children’s Internet Protection Act (a.k.a. CIPA, 47 CFR 54.520). Nor do the parents who buy these devices appear to grasp this basic fact: any network-mediated or Wi-Fi toy, apart from the obvious cellphone/tablet/PC, is at implicit risk for leaking personal data or hackable. How are these devices risking exposure of children’s data, including their activities and location, age-appropriate toys?

This piece at Computerworld has a few helpful suggestions. In my opinion, the IoT doesn’t belong in your kids’ toybox until your kids are old enough to understand and manage personal digital information security to use the internet safely.

Frankly, many parents aren’t ready for safe internet use.

Was Chrysler’s Vehicle Hacking Risk an SEC Disclosure Reportable Event?

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[photo: K2D2vaca via Flickr]

[photo: K2D2vaca via Flickr]

Remember the data breach at JPMorgan Chase, exposing 76 million accounts to “hack-mapping“? Last October, JPMorgan Chase publicly disclosed the intrusion and exposure to investors in an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The statement complied with the SEC’s CF Disclosure Guidance: Topic No. 2 – Cybersecurity.

Other companies whose customers’ data have been exposed also disclosed breaches in 8-Ks, including Target, TJX Companies, Heartland Payment, EMC and Google. (Firms NASDAQ, Citigroup and Amazon have not.)

Disclosure of known cybersecurity threats or attacks with potential material risks allows investors to make informed decisions. Stock share pricing will fluctuate and reflect the true market value once risk has been factored by investors — and not remain artificially high.

Fiat Chrysler America (FCA; NYSE:FCAU) has known for nearly a year about the risk that Chrysler vehicles could be hacked remotely, according to Fortune magazine Thursday.

Yet to date no filing with the SEC has been made, disclosing this specific cyber risk to investors, customers, and the public.

The SEC’s Disclosure Guidance, though, is just that — guidance. There aren’t any firm rules yet in place, and the guidance itself was published in October 2011. A lot has happened and changed about technology and cybersecurity risks since then; the guidance has not reflected the increasing threats and attacks to business’ data.

Nor does the SEC’s guidance distinguish between cybersecurity threats to service products (like banking services), versus hardlines or manufactured goods (like automobiles which offer software as an additional, non-essential feature). The software industry’s chronic security patching confuses any distinction; should software companies likewise include all security patches in their SEC filings, or continue as they have without doing so? It’s easy to see how revelations about Adobe Flash after Hacking Team was hacked have materially hurt Adobe and all companies relying on Flash — yet Adobe hasn’t released a statement at its website. (Only a statement addressing the 2013 threat to customer accounts is posted.)

Are financial services firms any more obligated than software firms? Are automobile companies, which claim ownership of on-board software, any more obligated than software companies? Read more →

Info Security Firms and Their Antivirus Software Monitored (Hacked?) by NSA, GCHQ

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[NSA slide indicated info sec AV firms targeted for surveillance]

[NSA slide indicated info sec AV firms targeted for surveillance]

Let’s call this post a work in progress. I’m still reading through a pile of reporting from different outlets to see if it’s all the same information but rebranded, or if there’s a particular insight one outlet picked up, missed by the rest. Here are a few I’ve been working on today:

7:03 am – Popular Security Software Came Under Relentless NSA and GCHQ Attacks (The Intercept)

7:12 am – US and British Spies Targeted Antivirus Companies (WIRED)

9:48 am – Spies are cracking into antivirus software, Snowden files reveal (The Hill)

12:18 pm – GCHQ has legal immunity to reverse-engineer Kaspersky antivirus, crypto (Ars Technica-UK)

12:57 pm*  – US, UK Intel agencies worked to subvert antivirus tools to aid hacking [Updated] (Ars Technica)(*unclear if this is original post time or time update posted))

~3:00 pm – NSA Has Reverse-Engineered Popular Consumer Anti-Virus Software In Order To Track Users (TechCrunch)
(post time is approximate as site only indicates rounded time since posting)

The question I don’t think anyone can answer yet is whether the hack of Kaspersky Lab using Duqu 2.0 was part of the effort by NSA or GCHQ, versus another nation-state. I would not be surprised if the cover over this operation was as thin as letting the blame fall on another entity. We’ve seen this tissue paper-thin cover before with Stuxnet.

For the general public, it’s important to note two things:

— Which firms were not targeted (that we know of);

— Understand the use of viruses and other malware that already threaten and damage civilian computing systems only creates a bigger future threat to civilian systems.

Once a repurposed and re-engineered exploit has been discovered, the changes to it are quickly shared, whether to those with good intentions or criminal intent. Simply put, criminals are benefiting from our tax dollars used to help develop their future attacks against us.

There’s a gross insufficiency of words to describe the level of shallow thinking and foresight employed in protecting our interests.

And unfortunately, the private sector cannot move fast enough to get out in front of this massive snowball of shite rolling towards it and us.

EDIT — 5:55 pm EDT —

And yes, I heard about the Polish airline LOT getting hit with a DDoS, grounding their flights. If as the airline’s spokesman is correct and LOT has recent, state-of-the-art systems, this is only the first such attack.

But if I were to hear about electrical problems on airlines over the next 24-48 hours, I wouldn’t automatically attribute it to hacking. We’re experiencing effects of a large solar storm which may have caused/will cause problems over the last few hours for GPS, communications, electricals systems, especially in North America.

EDIT — 1:15 am EDT 23JUN2015 —

At 2:48 pm local time Christchurch, New Zealand’s radar system experienced a “fault” — whatever that means. The entire radar system for the country was down, grounding all commercial flights. The system was back up at 4:10 pm local time, but no explanation has yet been offered as to the cause of the outage. There were remarks in both social media and in news reports indicating this is not the first such outage; however, it’s not clear when the last fault was, or what the cause may have been at that time.

It’s worth pointing out the solar storm strengthened over the course of the last seven hours since the last edit to this post. Aurora had been seen before dawn in the southern hemisphere, and from northern Europe to the U.S. Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning. It’s possible the storm affected the radar system — but other causes like malware, hacking, equipment and human failure are also possibilities.

Vaporous Voids: Questions Remain About Duqu 2.0 Malware

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Cybersecurity_MerrillCollegeofJournalismThe use of stolen Foxconn digital certificates in Duqu 2.0 gnaws at me, but I can’t put my finger on what exactly disturbs me. As detailed as reporting has been, there’s not enough information about this malware’s creation. Nor is there enough detail about its targeting of Kaspersky Lab and the P5+1 talks with Iran.

Kaspersky Lab carefully managed release of Duqu 2.0 news — from information security firm’s initial post and an op-ed, through the first wave of media reports. There’s surely information withheld from the public, about which no other entities know besides Kaspersky Lab and the hackers.

Is it withheld information that nags, leaving vaporous voids in the story’s context? Possibly.

But there are other puzzle pieces floating around without a home, parts that fit into a multi-dimensional image. They may fit into this story if enough information emerges.

Putting aside how much Duqu 2.0 hurts trust in certificates, how did hackers steal any from Foxconn? Did the hackers break into Foxconn’s network? Did they intercept communications to/from Foxconn? Did they hack another certificate authority?

If they broke into Foxconn, did they use the same approach the NSA used to hack Syria — with success this time? You may recall the NSA try to hack Syria’s communications in 2012, by inserting an exploit into a router. But in doing so, the NSA bricked the router. Because the device was DOA, the NSA could not undo its work and left evidence of hacking behind. The router’s crash took out Syria’s internet. Rapid recovery of service preoccupied the Syrians so much that they didn’t investigate the cause of the crash.

The NSA was ready to deny the operation, though, should the Syrians discover the hack:

…Back at TAO’s operations center, the tension was broken with a joke that contained more than a little truth: “If we get caught, we can always point the finger at Israel.”

Did the NSA’s attempted hack of Syria in 2012 provide direction along with added incentive for Duqu 2.0? The failed Syria hack demonstrated evidence must disappear with loss of power should an attempt crash a device — but the malware must have adequate persistence in targeted network. NSA’s readiness to blame Israel for the failed Syria hack may also have encouraged a fuck-you approach to hacking the P5+1 Iran talks. Read more →

Big Data: An Alternate Reason for Hacks Past and Future?

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[Fracking sites, location unknown (Simon Fraser University via Flickr)]

[Fracking sites, location unknown (Simon Fraser University via Flickr)]

On Monday, MIT’s Technology Review published an interesting read: Big Data Will Keep the Shale Boom Rolling.

Big Data. Industry players are relying on large sets of data collected across the field to make decisions. They’re not looking at daily price points alone in the market place, or at monthly and quarterly business performance. They’re evaluating comprehensive amounts of data over time, and some in real time as it is collected and distributed.

Which leads to an Aha! moment. The fastest entrant to market with the most complete and reliable data has a competitive advantage. But what if the fastest to market snatches others’ production data, faster than the data’s producer can use it when marketing their product?

One might ask who would hack fossil fuel companies’ data. The most obvious, logical answers are:

— anti-fossil fuel hackers cutting into production;
— retaliatory nation-state agents conducting cyber warfare;
— criminals looking for cash; and
— more benign scrip kiddies defacing property for fun.

But what if the hackers are none of the above? What if the hackers are other competitors (who by coincidence may be state-owned businesses) seeking information about the market ahead?

What would that look like? We’re talking really big money, impacting entire nation-state economies by breach-culled data. The kind of money that can buy governments’ silence and cooperation. Would it look as obvious as Nation A breaking the digital lock on Company B’s oil production? Or would it look far more subtle, far more deniable? Read more →