Tag Archive for: cold

John Ivison: Forget the Cold War, this cyber conflict is hot

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The continual attempts to disrupt government and commerce ‘would be an act of war in a different era’ said one insider. ‘We’re in a conflict, it just looks a little bit different’

Author of the article:

John Ivison

Publishing date:

Apr 07, 2021  •  4 hours ago  •  5 minute read  •  62 Comments

Sheriff Bob Gualtieri speaks at a news conference in Oldsmar, Fla., on Feb. 8 about a hacker gaining access to Oldsmar’s water treatment plant to taint the water supply.
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri speaks at a news conference in Oldsmar, Fla., on Feb. 8 about a hacker gaining access to Oldsmar’s water treatment plant to taint the water supply. Photo by Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office via AP

Two days before Superbowl LV in Tampa in early February, someone hacked into a water treatment plant in nearby Pinellas County and tried to poison Florida’s water supply. The unknown attacker used a password to break into the remote access software platform that controls the plant and adjusted the level of sodium hydroxide to more than 100 times normal levels – an act that would have had catastrophic consequences had a sharp-eyed operator not spotted the move and re-adjusted the chemical levels.

American investigators were contacted by Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, which has experience with water facility attacks, after a similar incident in 2020 that the NCD’s director said was “a changing point in the history of cyber warfare.” He noted that the attack against Israel was not accompanied by a ransom demand, suggesting it was not the work of cyber-criminals.

The source, or sources, of the attacks remains unknown, but it is apparent that cyber-espionage is not a benign activity.

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Canada’s adversaries in the cyber-sphere are constantly searching for vulnerabilities and trawling for administrator credentials.

Yet there is a remarkable lack of public outcry when it emerges that cyber-attacks were committed by Russia, China, Iran or North Korea.

The frontline defence against such bad actors is the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber-centre), which issued a threat assessment last year.

“We judge it is very unlikely that cyber…

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Will ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Outsell ‘Call Of Duty Cold War’?

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We are less than a week away from the launch of Cyberpunk 2077, the last major game to be released this year, and perhaps the biggest of them all. After three delays this year alone, there’s no more pushing it back now, and it will arrive next week, even if it ends up “coming in hot,” as they say.

What I’m growing curious about is if there’s enough interest in Cyberpunk 2077 where it could achieve the rare feat of outselling Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, where Call of Duty is the biggest selling game of the year, every year. The exception to this is when there’s a new Grand Theft Auto release, but other than that, it’s all Call of Duty all the time.

But Cyberpunk is just massively anticipated, so I don’t think it’s entirely out of the realm of possibility. But I do think it’s somewhat unlikely in the end.

What do we have to compare right now? Well, Activision is not really reporting Call of Duty sales a month or so after release. It released information that Cold War was the biggest digital launch in series history, which is not a huge surprise given the trends we’ve seen in the industry the past few years, not to mention two of the four new consoles that debuted this fall literally do not even have disc drives.

Past that, however, we have not gotten any firm numbers of sales for the games. Last year’s Modern Warfare did have specific numbers revealed, $600 million in sales in three days, and then $1 billion by mid December. Reportedly sales are around 30 million by many estimates at this point in time.

What to compare Cyberpunk 2077 to? The Witcher 3, of course.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt did not have Call of Duty level explosive sales, and yet it did put up large numbers all the same. 4 million copies in two weeks, 10 million copies in the first year. But it’s been a slow build. Last we heard in December 2019, The Witcher 3 had sold 28 million copies worldwide, exceedingly close to those Modern Warfare numbers, albeit over a larger time frame.

Of course, there are other factors to consider. The success of Warzone in the past year may have eaten into Call of Duty sales, even if…

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Hackers Target Covid-19 Vaccine Distribution ‘Cold Chain’: IBM

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A special freezer manufactured by Binder, seen here in Tuttlingen, Germany in November 2020.

Photo: Thomas Kienzle (Getty Images)

Hackers “assumed to be state agents” have been waging a phishing campaign against pharmaceutical firms and other institutions involved in the forthcoming distribution of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, IBM announced on Thursday.

In a post on Security Intelligence releasing their findings, IBM Security X-Force researchers wrote that “precision targeting of executives and key global organizations hold the potential hallmarks of a nation-state tradecraft,” adding the unknown hackers likely sought to obtain “advanced insight into the purchase and movement of a vaccine that can impact life and the global economy.” The target, according to IBM, appears to be the “cold chain”—a term for the logistics network that allows vaccines and other drugs to be carried from point of manufacture to distribution in temperature-controlled shipping containers. What the attackers hoped to accomplish is unknown, with possible motives ranging from theft of technology to intel that could be used to undermine trust in the vaccine or disrupt distribution.

IBM researchers wrote that the individuals targeted firms in at least six countries and used tactics such as impersonating a Haier Biomedical executive to send spear-phishing emails and targeting the help and support pages of organizations. Many of the targets were linked to international vaccine alliance Gavi’s cold chain program and included European Union bodies key to vaccine distribution, UNICEF, companies that manufacture solar panels used in cold storage, and IT firms that protect pharmaceutical firms:

The targets included the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union, as well as organizations within the energy, manufacturing, website creation and software and internet security solutions sectors. These are global organizations headquartered in Germany, Italy, South Korea, Czech Republic, greater Europe and Taiwan.

The spear-phishing emails sent included malicious HTML files that prompted recipients to enter their login credentials, which would pass them on to the attackers. Pfizer and Moderna, the two pharma firms manufacturing vaccines expected to begin…

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Hackers try to penetrate the vital ‘cold chain’ for coronavirus vaccines, security team reports

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The hackers took measures to hide their tracks, and the cyber-sleuths did not name which state might be behind the campaign.

The IBM team said it was not known why the hackers were trying to penetrate the systems. It suggested the intruders might either want to steal information, glean details about technology or contracts, create confusion and distrust, or to disrupt the vaccine supply chains themselves.

The hackers likely sought “advanced insight into the purchase and movement of a vaccine that can impact life and the global economy,” the IBM team said.

As there was “no clear path to a cash-out,” as there is a ransomware attack, it increased the likelihood of a state actor, though the IBM sleuths cautioned it was still possible that criminals could be looking for ways to illegally obtain “a hot black-market commodity,” such as an initially scarce vaccine.

The new generation of RNA vaccines, such as the Pfizer product approved for emergency use by Britain on Wednesday, require sub-Antarctic temperatures for storage and transport. But even more traditional vaccines, such as the candidate being tested by Oxford University and its partner AstraZeneca, must be kept refrigerated.

The hackers targeted organizations linked to Gavi, a public-private vaccine alliance that seeks to supply vaccines to poor countries. The alliance works closely with the World Health Organization, donor countries, the global pharmaceutical industry and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The cybersecurity agency encouraged all organizations in involved in the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed to be especially alert to challenges to their cold chain systems.

In a blog post, which was distributed to cybersecurity agencies, IBM said an intruder impersonated a business executive at Haier Biomedical, a legitimate Chinese company active in vaccine supply chain, which specializes in refrigeration of medical products. The impersonator sent emails to “executives in sales, procurement, information technology and finance positions, likely involved in company efforts to support a vaccine cold chain.”

It’s unclear if any of the phishing attempts were successful.

In her post, Claire Zaboeva,…

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