Tag Archive for: Bolsters

Pennsylvania a focus as FBI bolsters security over threats prompted by search of Trump’s home

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FBI offices across the country, including in Philadelphia, are on high alert in response to increasing threats to federal law enforcement officers following last week’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate.

The defensive posture comes after separate attacks carried out by two men with Pennsylvania ties in days since, including one who was convicted in a 2020 assault at a home owned by the Episcopal bishop of Bethlehem.

On Monday, federal authorities arrested a third man — a Mercer County photographer — for a series of threats he made on the right-wing social media platform Gab to slaughter FBI agents and “water the trees of liberty” with their blood.

» READ MORE: Pennsylvania man arrested for threatening to slaughter FBI agents and ‘water the trees of liberty’ with their blood

The escalation of similar incidents in recent days prompted the FBI and the Department of Homeland security to issue a joint intelligence bulletin Friday expressing concern about the volatile environment. It described what the agencies called as an “unprecedented” number of social media threats including calls for “civil war” and “armed rebellion.”

Among the specific threats cited was one to place a “dirty bomb” outside FBI headquarters in Washington as well as calls for the targeted killings of judicial and law enforcement officials connected with the Mar-a-Lago search.

The joint intelligence bulletin cited last week’s attempted breach of the FBI’s Cincinnati field office by Ricky W. Shiffer, who is believed to have made provocative posts on Truth Social, the social media platform founded by Trump, before showing up to the building armed with an AR-15 style rifle and a nail gun.

Shiffer, 42, grew up on a farm in Perry County, outside Harrisburg, and enlisted in the Navy soon after graduating from high school in 1998.

Public records show he did not return to the state after his Naval service and a stint in the Florida Army National Guard that saw him deployed during the Iraq War. He was living in Ohio in the months before last week’s attack.

Social media accounts bearing his name — including one on the Trump-founded site Truth Social — boasted of…

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Qatar bolsters cyber security in preparation for World Cup

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Qatar hosts the FIFA World Cup this year – the first time the event has been staged in the Arab world. Cyber security experts in the country predict that ticketing, hotel bookings and restaurant reservations will be faked by hackers to capture personal data from people travelling to Qatar. Also, phishing and social engineering will be used to steal personal and financial information from anyone using the internet to get information about the tournament. 

“If there is anything we have learned about cyber crime from past encounters, it would be that it thrives around major global events,” said Mohammad Al-Kayed, director of cyber defence at Black Mountain Cybersecurity. “Both viewers and attendees are advised to keep their guard up for cyber threats in the form of online scams and malicious emails promoting the sales of tickets and sporting goods. The biggest threat of all is piracy of ongoing football matches through online platforms.” 

On 25 March, Interpol gathered a group of global cyber security experts together in Qatar to analyse threats ahead of the World Cup. The meeting was part of Project Stadia, which was established by Interpol in 2012 and funded by Qatar. Although special emphasis is placed on the 2022 World Cup, the project aims to contribute to security arrangements for any major sports event. 

Qatar has partnered with several countries to provide physical security for the World Cup, including Turkey, France and the UK. Turkey will send 3,000 riot police, France will send four airborne warning and control systems to track airborne threats, including drones, and the UK will providing maritime security support and counter-terror policing.  

But surprisingly, the biggest announcement so far about helping Qatar with cyber security comes from Morocco, which will send a team of cyber security experts to Qatar as part of the two countries’ efforts to expand cooperation in security. Could it be that Qatar thinks it has enough home-grown expertise in cyber security not to call on help from more powerful countries? 

Al-Kayed told Computer Weekly: “The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy has already issued a cyber security framework ahead of the…

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Raspberry Pi OS update bolsters security against brute force attacks

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Raspberry Pi has announced a new change to the device’s operating system that aims to improve its defences against cyber attacks.

First-time set up processes for Raspberry Pis have previously required users to set a custom password, but the latest change will mandate a custom default user name too.

Although developers have said that obtaining a common default user name, which was previously set to “pi” unless changed, isn’t all that useful to hackers, they believe this change should help prevent brute force attacks and password spraying attempts.

“Just knowing a valid user name doesn’t really help much if someone wants to hack into your system; they would also need to know your password, and you’d need to have enabled some form of remote access in the first place,” said Simon Long, senior principal engineer at Raspberry Pi.

“But nonetheless, it could potentially make a brute-force attack slightly easier, and in response to this, some countries are now introducing legislation to forbid any Internet-connected device from having default login credentials.”

The UK’s Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) Bill was introduced in 2021 but drew criticism from experts who argued the Bill did not go far enough to ensure adequate protection for internet-connected devices.

The PSTI’s scope does not cover desktop and laptop computers, among an array of other devices, Martin Tyley, head of cyber security at KPMG UK, said to IT Pro earlier this year – a category under which Raspberry Pis would fall.

Long said the change to Raspberry Pi OS may introduce “a few issues” where software and its accompanying documentation assumes a default “pi” user is present, though “it feels like a sensible change to make at this point”.

After flashing a new OS image, users will be presented with a new, but familiar, Raspberry Pi OS set up wizard, which will no longer be optional. Users could previously press ‘cancel’ and were not forced to use it.

If users choose to manually set their user name and password to ‘pi’ and ‘raspberry’ respectively, the previous default credentials, they will be met with a warning prompt but such a configuration won’t be…

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SentinelOne Bolsters Global Engineering Organization with Veteran Leadership | Business

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jun 18, 2021–

SentinelOne, an autonomous cybersecurity platform company, today announced the appointment of Siggi Petursson as Vice President, Customer-Centric Engineering and Martin Matula as Vice President, Engineering, Czech Republic Site Lead. SentinelOne’s engineering organization operates on a global scale in multiple regional sites, enabling rapid innovation and scaled product delivery.

Petursson brings more than 20 years of cybersecurity and software engineering leadership experience to SentinelOne, most recently holding the position of Sr. Director of Software Engineering at Oracle (NYSE: ORCL). At Oracle, Petursson played a critical role in enabling the company’s software migration from on-premises to the cloud, designing machine learning systems to ensure quality control of cloud-based products. Petursson also spearheaded the company’s Security-as-a-Service solution, an automated solution that scanned products for security vulnerabilities and provided auto-triaging capabilities. At SentinelOne, Petursson will drive product quality assurance and lead the company’s sustaining engineering team.

Matula comes to SentinelOne from Avast, where he was VP of Engineering at the company’s Czech Republic headquarters, responsible for leading an engineering organization spanning multiple locations in EMEA and the US, delivering endpoint, IoT, and mobile security solutions. Prior to Avast, Matula held regional engineering leadership positions at companies including Cisco and GoodData. At SentinelOne, Matula will lead engineering team growth in the Czech Republic, expanding throughout central and eastern Europe.

“Siggi and Martin have distinguished themselves as leaders in security software engineering and bring tremendous value to SentinelOne,” said Ric Smith, Chief Technology Officer, SentinelOne. “Their experience leading teams and product engineering for public and private cloud-based solutions supports the company’s global engineering efforts and the Singularity XDR platform’s flexible deployment…

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