Tag Archive for: press

Chinese spies breached hundreds of public, private networks, security firm says | Associated Press

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Suspected state-backed Chinese hackers used a security hole in a popular email security appliance to break into the networks of hundreds of public and private sector organizations globally, nearly a third of them government agencies including foreign ministries, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant said Thursday.

“This is the broadest cyber espionage campaign known to be conducted by a China-nexus threat actor since the mass exploitation of Microsoft Exchange in early 2021,” Charles Carmakal, Mandiant’s chief technical officer, said in a emailed statement. That hack compromised tens of thousands of computers globally.

In a blog post Thursday, Google-owned Mandiant expressed “high confidence” that the group exploiting a software vulnerability in Barracuda Networks’ Email Security Gateway was engaged in “espionage activity in support of the People’s Republic of China.” It said the activivity began as early as October.

The hackers sent emails containing malicious file attachments to gain access to targeted organizations’ devices and data, Mandiant said. Of those organizations, 55% were from the Americas, 22% from Asia Pacific and 24% from Europe, the Middle East and Africa and they included foreign ministries in Southeast Asia, foreign trade offices and academic organizations in Taiwan and Hong Kong. the company said.

Mandiant said the majority impact in the Americas may partially reflect the geography of Barracuda’s customer base.

Barracuda announced on June 6 that some of its its email security appliances had been hacked as early as October, giving the intruders a back door into compromised networks. The hack was so severe the California company recommended fully replacing the appliances.

After discovering it in mid-May, Barracuda released containment and remediation patches but the hacking group, which Mandiant identifies as UNC4841, altered their malware to try to maintain access, Mandiant said. The group then “countered with high frequency operations targeting a number of victims located in at least 16 different countries.”

Word of the breach as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken departs for China this weekend as part of the Biden…

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Israeli Phone Malware Maker QuaDream Apparently Ready To Call It Quits After Suffering A Little Negative Press

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from the cut-and-run dept

QuaDream, an NSO-alike with links to Israeli intelligence services, first made international headlines last year. And for the worst reasons. An investigation found QuaDream (much like NSO Group) sold iPhone-targeting malware to human rights violators. These sales were given a layer of plausible deniability, handled by a Cyprus-based company on behalf of QuaDream as it collected paychecks from garbage governments around the world.

Further investigations by Toronto’s Citizen Lab uncovered QuaDream’s links to abusive governments, as well as abusive deployments of its zero-click exploit to target journalists, activists, political opponents, and dissidents.

Now that it’s inadvertently shown its whole ass to the world, it appears QuaDream is shuttering its malware business. Or at least, it wants all of its critics to believe that’s what it’s doing. But this report from the Jerusalem Post indicates that, real or otherwise, QuaDream’s latest business move involves laying off several actual human beings.

Israeli cybersecurity company QuaDream reportedly summoned many of its 40 employees to a pre-termination hearing on Monday ahead of widespread layoffs, according to Globes.

This downturn (and its unfortunate effect on 40 QuaDream employees) is being blamed on everything but the company’s decision to sell to human rights abusers, engage in zero oversight of its products’ deployment, and it’s willingness to engage in ethically awful business practices.

QuaDream, which can only access iPhones (unlike NSO, which can also hack Android phones), wrote in a letter to court: “The crisis in the industry began due to the public disclosure of the activities of some of the companies from 2018 onward, which resulted in the fact that in November 2011, the US Chamber of Commerce put NSO and Candiru on its blacklist. Immediately after that, at the start of 2022, the regulator in Israel decided to reduce the number of countries to which it is allowed to sell the companies’ products in the industry from 102 to only 37, which caused a severe economic crisis in the entire industry.”

When you’re blaming a government for harming your business by…

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The National Security Bill and the press: a threat to reputable news publishers, an open door for foreign interference?

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By Nathan Sparkes

The National Security Bill is intended to protect the UK from “foreign powers” and has been described as an anti-spying bill.

However, national security legislation often poses a threat to journalists’ ability to do their jobs – and this bill is no different.

A threat to press freedom

The most concerning part of the Bill for UK-based journalists is Clause 3, which states:

Assisting a foreign intelligence service

(1) A person commits an offence if the person—

(a) engages in conduct of any kind, and

(b) intends that conduct to materially assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out UK-related activities.

(2) A person commits an offence if the person—

(a) engages in conduct that is likely to materially assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out UK-related activities, and

(b) knows, or ought reasonably to know, that it is reasonably possible their conduct may materially assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out UK-related activities.

(3) Conduct that may materially assist a foreign intelligence service includes providing, or providing access to, information, goods, services or financial benefits (whether directly or indirectly).

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The penalty for this offence is imprisonment for up to 14 years, or a fine.

Reporters sometimes publish information which may assist a foreign intelligence service, yet its disclosure is in the public interest.

For example, the publication of data on unethical activities by UK intelligence services might both assist foreign intelligence services and be in the interests of the UK public to be known.

Some outlets, like the IMPRESS-regulated Declassified UK, specialise in reporting on alleged cases of unethical conduct committed by UK intelligence, diplomatic or military agencies.

It would be a significant threat to the freedom of the press if this provision was used to target Declassified UK and other, similar publishers acting in the public interest.

Unjustified exemptions

Alongside this heavy-handed provision, for which there is no defence for news publishers, other provisions in the bill benefit from a media exemption.

These provisions require individuals or organisations to register with the…

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Nigerian press zones in on circulation of newly redesigned banknotes, others –

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The report that the newly redesigned naira notes will go into circulation today with Deposit Money Banks releasing the bills to their customers via over-the-counter payments dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.The Punch reports that the newly redesigned naira notes will go into circulation on Thursday (today) with Deposit Money Banks releasing the bills to their customers via over-the-counter payments.

This came about three weeks after the President Muhammadu Buhari, unveiled the new bills at a weekly Federal Executive Council meeting in Aso Rock Villa.

The President unveiled the redesigned notes across the N200, N500 and N1,000 denominations.

The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, had in October announced that apex bank would release re-designed naira notes by December 15, 2022.

He also disclosed that the old notes would cease to be regarded as legal tender by January 31, 2023.

Emefiele pointed out that the redesigning of the naira notes would help to curb counterfeit notes, and reduce ransom payments to terrorists and kidnappers.

The CBN boss said it was worrisome that 85 per cent of the total currency in circulation was being hoarded by Nigerians.

As such, he said the redesigning of the local currency would help to mop up the currency outside the banking sector, adding that out of about N3.3tn in circulation, close to N2.75tn were outside the banking sector.

The newspaper says that Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at $46.16bn or N16.25tn in 12 years, from 2009 to 2020, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, has said.

It disclosed this in a statement issued by its Head, Communications and Advocacy, Obiageli Onuorah.

It also welcomed the decision of the Federal Government to set up a Special Investigative Panel on Oil Theft and Losses in Nigeria, describing it as bold, courageous and timely, given the havoc the menace had wrecked in oil production and the country’s revenue generation.

Nigeria’s crude oil losses, according to NEITI, were basically from theft and sabotage, according to information and data provided by an average of eight companies covered by NEITI’s process over the…

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