Tag Archive for: Engineering

North Korea Using Social Engineering to Enable Hacking of Think Tanks, Academia, and Media


The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Department of State, and the National Security Agency (NSA), together with the Republic of Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), National Police Agency (NPA), and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), are jointly issuing this advisory to highlight the use of social engineering by Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK a.k.a. North Korea) state-sponsored cyber actors to enable computer network exploitation (CNE) globally against individuals employed by research centers and think tanks, academic institutions, and news media organizations. These North Korean cyber actors are known to conduct spearphishing campaigns posing as real journalists, academics, or other individuals with credible links to North Korean policy circles. The DPRK employs social engineering to collect intelligence on geopolitical events, foreign policy strategies, and diplomatic efforts affecting its interests by gaining illicit access to the private documents, research, and communications of their targets.

North Korea’s cyber program provides the regime with broad intelligence collection and espionage capabilities. The Governments of the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK a.k.a. South Korea) have observed sustained information-gathering efforts originating from these North Korean cyber actors. North Korea’s primary military intelligence organization, the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), which has been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, is primarily responsible for this network of actors and activities.

We assess the primary goals of the DPRK regime’s cyber program include maintaining consistent access to current intelligence about the United States, South Korea, and other countries of interest to impede any political, military, or economic threat to the regime’s security and stability.

Currently, the U.S. and ROK Governments, and private sector cyber security companies, track a specific set of DPRK cyber actors conducting these large-scale social engineering campaigns as Kimsuky, Thallium, APT43, Velvet Chollima, and Black Banshee. Kimsuky is administratively subordinate to an element within North Korea’s…

Source…

High salary, job security rewards of a career in Computer Engineering


As Computer Engineering is a vast and diverse field, those choosing to study in this field with the right aptitude would never be disappointed. Along with a high salary and status, there is also the opportunity to work satisfactorily and have good living conditions. Another notable factor is job security. By keeping up with the latest trends, adapting to the changes and resolving the challenges, Computer Engineering professionals would be able to forge ahead.

High salary

Computer Engineering and Information Technology are the two job sectors that offer high salaries in the present times. As per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, employees in these two sectors earn twice than the national average. Jobs such as web development and computer support technicians do not require a degree but can get high salaries.

Degree-holders working as network architect, programmer, system analyst, software developer, and hardware engineer get only average salary.

Source…

Top 5 Cyber-Security companies in india.



Cyber engineering, computer science team publishes a paper and presents research on popular app vulnerabilities


Hacking a safety app netted a Louisiana Tech University Computer Science graduate student a publishing credit, a trip to Hawaii, and the opportunity to present the research at an international conference.

Louisiana Tech Cyber Engineering alumnus and current MS Computer Science and CyberCorps ®: Scholarship for Service student Jonah Fitzgerald (‘22), along with fellow Cyber Engineering program alumni Thomas Mason (‘22) and Brian Mulhair (‘22), discovered a vulnerability in the Louisiana Department of Health COVID Defense contact tracing app that allows hackers to attack neighboring devices.

As seniors researching a paper assignment for Dr. William Bradley Glisson’s Computer Science 448/543, Cyber Engineering 404 “Reverse Engineering” class, the team discovered the symptoms history share feature of the app could be modified to send a malicious link via email, WIFI, and nearby share systems. The team was able to demonstrate two attacks using the link: They were able to harvest credentials by redirecting users to a fake page resembling the My.LA.Gov page and installing an Android app on the target phone to access all the information in that phone.

With additional guidance from Glisson, the team improved their results, presented the research to Glisson’s Cybersecurity Information Technology Exploration Research Group, and submitted the paper to the conference.

Fitzgerald then had the opportunity to travel to Ka’anapali Beach on the island of Maui to present the team’s findings at the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences “Internet and the Digital Economy” track and “Cybercrime” mini-track.

“I wanted to get involved with this research because I felt I could make a meaningful contribution to improving mobile app security and fighting the COVID-19 pandemic,” Fitzgerald said. “I feel that my Tech education in cyber engineering prepared me for success in solving these types of problems by rapidly learning new concepts like reverse engineering and tackling tough challenges in cybersecurity and computer science.”

Fitzgerald, who is continuing his graduate education with Louisiana Tech and is a member of the Louisiana Tech Research…

Source…