Tag Archive for: People’s

U.S. Government Disrupts Botnet People’s Republic Of China Used To Conceal Hacking Of Critical Infrastructure

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FBI News:

A December 2023 court-authorized operation has disrupted a botnet of hundreds of U.S.-based small office/home office (SOHO) routers hijacked by People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored hackers.

The hackers, known to the private sector as “Volt Typhoon”, used privately-owned SOHO routers infected with the “KV Botnet” malware to conceal the PRC origin of further hacking activities directed against U.S. and other foreign victims.

These further hacking activities included a campaign targeting critical infrastructure organizations in the United States and elsewhere that was the subject of a May 2023 FBI, National Security Agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and foreign partner advisory.

The same activity has been the subject of private sector partner advisories in May and December 2023, as well as an additional secure by design alert released recently by CISA.

The vast majority of routers that comprised the KV Botnet were Cisco and NetGear routers that were vulnerable because they had reached “end of life” status; that is, they were no longer supported through their manufacturer’s security patches or other software updates. The court-authorized operation deleted the KV Botnet malware from the routers and took additional steps to sever their connection to the botnet, such as blocking communications with other devices used to control the botnet.

“The Justice Department has disrupted a PRC-backed hacking group that attempted to target America’s critical infrastructure utilizing a botnet,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said. “The United States will continue to dismantle malicious cyber operations – including those sponsored by foreign governments – that undermine the security of the American people.”

“In wiping out the KV Botnet from hundreds of routers nationwide, the Department of Justice is using all its tools to disrupt national security threats – in real time,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said.  “Today’s announcement also highlights our critical partnership with the private sector – victim reporting is key to fighting cybercrime, from home offices to our most critical…

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The War for Headspace: NextGen cyberattacks aim to manipulate people’s minds 

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For thousands of years, the only two domains of war were land and sea. Nations fought battles with rudimentary weapons that were blunt, inaccurate or massive (siege weapons).

It was in World War I that a new domain – air – was added. Forty-three years later, in April 1961, space became the fourth domain when the Soviet Union launched Vostok 1 and Yuri Gagarin.

It would take another 50 years to add the next domain. In 2011, the United States Department of Defense officially incorporated cyberspace as the fifth domain of war. The advance of technology brought the ability to wage war and terrorism to our front door.

But it’s the next domain where future wars will begin. It’s a domain not constrained to a single geography, nation, or political party. This domain gets shaped throughout a lifetime, augmented by rapid technological change, and fueled by recent developments in generative AI.

The next domain is headspace. It’s where countries will wage the war for the mind. And someone will win before the first shots get fired. In this war, shaping the narrative will be as crucial as shaping the battlefield is to military planners. The ability to influence perception will become more valuable than the ability to tell the truth.

Disinformation has emerged as a new kind of warfare. Adversaries are leveraging it to erode truth and influence people to think and act in ways they might not have conceptualized. They are fueling Intimidation of those voicing opinions. And online violence has spilled over into real-world violence on a global scale.

The nature of the threat and the vectors of attacks are no longer just about ones and zeros. It’s evolving to the manipulation of perception to achieve a goal. It’s so vital to national security the Pentagon was exploring the ability to counter opinion and influence actions three months after 9-11.

Originally called the Office of Strategic Influence, it was a short-lived program that never got traction, especially after allegations of planting news stories, including false ones, around the globe.

Deceptions like these are not new tactics. During the Cold War, the ability to manipulate, influence, deceive, coerce and persuade the press was a staple,…

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Hamas, Iranian hackers seek to leverage Israeli people’s stress

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Tel Aviv [Israel], December 19 (ANI/TPS): The Israel National Cyber Directorate announced on Monday that Iran and Hezbollah were behind an attempted cyberattack on the Ziv Medical Centre in Safed in late November. “The attack was thwarted before it could successfully disrupt hospital operations and impact citizens’ medical treatment,” the INCD stated. “However, the attackers managed to extract private data stored in the hospital’s systems.”

While the INCD defends Israeli civilian and government cyberspace, including hospitals, and Internet and phone service providers, military cybersecurity is a very different matter, according to Alon Arvatz, CEO and co-founder of Stealth Startup. Most computers with any sensitive information are not connected to the Internet, and Israeli soldiers operating in Gaza aren’t allowed to carry cell phones for fear of exposing their locations or other sensitive data, Arvatz told the Tazpit Press Service in an interview last month.

“We read the frustrations from their families, saying, ‘I don’t know what’s going on with my son, or wife or child.’ So it’s heartbreaking,” he said. “But from a security perspective, it means very good things about the army and how it handles it. The worst thing that can happen is that a soldier would accidentally expose his location and the plans of the army.” On Oct. 7 and since, there has been widespread speculation about how Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel in such large numbers, as well as how they were able to murder, torture and kidnap so many Israelis and others. Despite Israel’s reputation as one of the world’s cyberspace superpowers, Hamas appears to have sought to sabotage Israel’s vaunted rocket-alert system and siphon off donations intended for Oct. 7 victims, Arvatz told TPS.

Hackers Leveraging People’s StressParallel to Hamas’s ground invasion, the terrorists also launched “attacks into cyberspace, targeting various civilian and governmental targets,” said Arvatz, a veteran of the Israel Defense Force’s elite cyber Unit 8200 and author of The Battle for Your Computer: Israel and the Growth of the Global Cyber-Security Industry. Hamas’s multi-pronged attack–from land, sea, air and cyberspace–sought to…

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The People’s Liberation Army: So You Think It’s Just a Paper Tiger?

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I keep hearing these days that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a “paper tiger,” 

Thus there’s no need to worry about an attack on Taiwan. And anyway, the United States has plenty of time to get ready before the PLA is a real threat – rather than just a “near-peer competitor.”

The PLA’s problems? To name a few: no recent combat experience, corruption, too many “only children” in the ranks. The Chinese Navy can’t conduct combat operations in distant seas and is not able to master “amphibious operations” – supposedly the most complex and hardest of all military operations. 

Even China’s leaders complain about “peace disease.” The PLA hasn’t fought a war for decades. And too many senior officers can’t manage the demands of modern high-tech warfare.

Maybe so. But in the last 30 years, the People’s Republic of China has pulled off the biggest, fastest military build-up since World War II. China’s defense budgets are much greater than the roughly $220 billion USD it claims and possibly exceed US defense spending. 

The Chinese Navy is already larger than the US Navy and the gap will widen. China is launching five ships for every one the USN puts in the water. It has put more tonnage and missiles to sea as well. 

Beijing lavishes similar attention upon its air force, ground forces, cyber and electronic warfare. And its missile capabilities, including hypersonic weaponry, probably exceed US capabilities. Its nuclear weapons build-up has finally got even the China experts worried. They dismissed it for years.

Sri Lanka lets a Chinese ship conduct research despite spying concerns. (Screenshot from WION broadcast via X on October 1, 2023.)
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‘Eyes Wide Open’

China knows its problems but it has clear objectives. Defeating US forces is objective number one. And it trains hard to achieve these goals. Its ships are not rust buckets. Nor do they collide with other ships or burn up pier side every so often.

Yes, the PLA would have a harder time attacking Des Moines, Iowa, but that’s not the point.

It’s true that Chinese conventional combat power – or “power projection” – drops off rapidly beyond, say, 1000 miles from the Chinese border. But…

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