Tag Archive for: Lead

Kavanaugh incident could lead to more security for judges

/in


WASHINGTON (AP) — A man armed with a machete once broke into Stephen Breyer’s vacation home in the Caribbean and took $1,000. Ruth Bader Ginsburg had her purse snatched on a Washington street. David Souter was assaulted by several men while he was jogging.

Supreme Court justices have not been immune to violent crime. But this past week’s late-night incident at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s suburban Washington home, where authorities said a man armed with a gun and knife threatened to kill the justice, reflects a heightened level of potential danger not just for members of the nation’s highest court, but all judges.

Round-the-clock security given to the justices after the leak of the draft opinion in a major abortion case may well have averted a tragedy.

READ MORE: Supreme Court says armed man arrested near Justice Kavanaugh’s house

But the situation had much in common with other recent incidents that ended with the shooting death of a former judge in Wisconsin last week and the killing in 2020 of the son of a federal judge at their home in New Jersey. Troubled men, harboring a warped desire for vengeance and equipped with guns, turned their threats into action.

“We’re seeing these threats increase in number and intensity. That’s a sign. That’s a signal,” said U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, whose son was killed nearly two years ago in the attack that also wounded her husband.

Kavanaugh’s would-be attacker is Nicholas John Roske, 26, of Simi Valley, California, authorities said in charging him with the attempted murder of a justice. Clad in black, he arrived by taxi outside Kavanaugh’s Maryland home around 1 a.m. Wednesday.

He spotted two U.S. Marshals who were guarding the house and walked in the other direction, calling 911 to say he was having suicidal thoughts and also planned to kill Kavanaugh, according to court documents. Roske said he found the justice’s address on the internet.

When police searched a backpack and suitcase he was carrying, they said they found a Glock 17 pistol, ammunition, a knife, zip ties, duct tape and other items Roske said he was going to use to break into the house. He said he bought the gun to kill…

Source…

DVIDS – News – Army Cyber Command experts helping to lead modernization, build collective knowledge

/in



Some of Army Cyber Command’s (ARCYBER) brightest minds are among the world-class experts leading Army modernization while building ties and collective knowledge in the military, industrial and academic communities.

Most recently, Maj. Jaison Desai, Ph.D. and Lt. Col. James Sanders of ARCYBER’s Technical Warfare Center joined colleagues from the Army Cyber Institute and the Army Artificial Intelligence Integration Center, along with more than 100 other experts from across the Department of Defense (DoD), national laboratories, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, academia and industry who attended and made presentations at the 2021 Emerging Techniques Forum (ETF). The event was hosted by the Military Operations Research Society (MORS) in Alexandria, Va., in December 2021.

Desai and Sanders represented the Enterprise Information Technology as a Service (EITaaS) pilot program team, which falls under ARCYBER’s Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM). The pair presented work created in collaboration with fellow team members Mark Southwell, Maj. Ezra McCalment and Maj. Tony Abeyta. Their presentation – “Process Innovation and Exploration of Army EITaaS Approaches” — highlighted policy, assessment and process challenges with adopting as-a-service models and how the team is navigating those areas. The presentation drew praise from numerous attendees and requests for copies and further discussion from Maj. Gen. Martin Klein, commander of the U.S. Army Reserve’s 75th Innovation Command, and U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Loretta Reynolds, former USMC deputy commandant for information.

“Being able to present at the MORS conferences is an amazing professional development opportunity and a great way to build connections with other members of the operations research community throughout DoD,” Desai said. “This year’s conference was particularly special because I was able to represent our ARCYBER and NETCOM team and share the progress we’ve made in areas critical to Army modernization.”

Desai’s contributions to academia…

Source…

CIS Mobile Hires Industry Veteran Chris Chroniger to Lead Secure Mobility Support Efforts

/in


ASHBURN, Va., July 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — CIS Mobile, a mobile security leader, today announces the hiring of veteran industry executive Christopher (Chris) Chroniger, to develop and oversee its customer-facing and program management efforts. Chris will be responsible for the development, implementation and operation of all customer support and delivery activities for the rapidly growing altOS secure mobility platform. In this role, Chris will report directly to Dr. Bill Anderson, President of CIS Mobile.

In a statement, Anderson noted “Chris brings many years of experience to our altOS platform. Our unique combination of a modified Android OS supported by a powerful management console has gathered an increasing amount of attention from mission-driven customers. CIS Mobile has seen significant growth over the past year as customers recognize the risk and vulnerabilities found in consumer-grade mobile security. Chris brings a great skillset to our team and will help us scale our sales, support and operations activities.”

Prior to joining CIS Mobile, Chroniger served as Chief Technology Officer for GAP Solutions – where he was responsible for the development, implementation and operation of the company’s solutions and technology services. In his work at GAP – a SystemOne Company – Chris led successful new business capture and delivery across multiple areas of expertise. Chris also established GAP’s Communities of Interest (COI) to support internal requirements for collaboration and team engagement. Chris was a key business driver for GAP’s work at the US Food and Drug Administration’s Enterprise Services and Solutions Division Modernization Program.

Prior to his work at GAP, Chris served as Chief Technology Officer for Maximus (formerly Acentia), NetStar-1 and Vice President, Strategic Technologies & Services for Dimension Data US (formerly TimeBridge Technologies). Chris also held key technological support roles at the Executive Office of the President and NASA.

Chris is an active member at ACTI-IAC, Washington Executive IoT Council and previously was Chair of the IPv6 Working Group.  

About CIS Mobile

CIS Mobile is a subsidiary of CIS Secure, an industry leader and global…

Source…

Fake Microsoft and Spotify Ads Lead to Ficker Malware

/in


People tend to be less guarded when they’re dealing with something familiar. Digital attackers know this, which explains why they set up malware behind ads pretending to be for Microsoft Store products and Spotify.

Bleeping Computer learned from ESET that the attackers were using malicious advertisements as part of their attack chain. Once clicked, those ads sent users to the Spotify or Microsoft Store scam websites harboring samples of the Ficker stealer family.

Read on to learn how these websites enticed visitors to infect themselves with malware.

Want a Legit App? Well, Here’s Some Malware Instead…

The attackers used malicious ads to lure in users with promotions for real apps.

Security researchers spotted one ad promoting an online chess app, for example. When clicked, the ad sent users to a fake Microsoft Store page. Clicking on the ‘Download Free’ button retrieved a malware payload disguised as xChess_v.709.zip from an Amazon AWS server.

Some of the other malicious ads directed users to a landing page offering a free bundle of Spotify Music and YouTube Premium for 90 days. No such bundle existed as of this writing.

The website then instructed visitors to click on a ‘Download Free App (1 MB)’ button. It’s worth noting that no music player is that small in size. At this time, the actual size of the real Spotify mobile and desktop apps was at least 150 MB.

Both of those apps downloaded Ficker onto a victim’s device. This malware is capable of stealing users’ passwords, taking screenshots of their computers and lifting documents.

Other Recent Attacks Involving Ficker

Malware analysts took to Twitter to expose Ficker in October 2020. At that time, they observed the malware developer renting out Ficker on Russian-speaking cracker forums.

In the months that followed, researchers learned more about how the digital threat works and observed the malware in action. One of the first eureka moments came from Minerva in early March, when its researchers witnessed Ficker download the Kronos RAT in a lab setting.

A few weeks later, Infoblox detected a malspam campaign that used DocuSign-themed lures to install the Hancitor Trojan…

Source…