Washington Post: Tech giants ramp up cloud security under pressure from Washington. “After a recent theft of emails from top U.S. officials raised alarms about the country’s increasing dependence on the biggest cloud computing companies, Amazon, Google and Microsoft have begun to explain more of the work they do to secure the data of tens of millions of online customers.”
CISA: CISA Launches National Public Service Announcement Campaign Encouraging Americans to Take Steps to Keep Themselves and Their Families Safe Online. “The campaign includes a public service announcement (PSA) that will air on stations around the country, as well as digital content, a toolkit, and other resources. Recognizing that technology is an integral part of our modern lives, Congress tasked CISA with creating this program to provide small businesses, communities, and individuals with the guidance and tools they need to protect themselves online.”
CNBC: How a North Korean cyber group impersonated a Washington D.C. analyst. “Six years ago, a well-respected researcher was working late into the night when she stepped away from her computer to brush her teeth. By the time she came back, her computer had been hacked.”
NBC News: Donald Trump Jr.’s X account apparently hacked, announces father’s death. “Donald Trump Jr.’s account on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter appeared to be hacked early Wednesday. One post falsely stated that former President Donald Trump had died, according to screenshots.”
The Register: Scattered Spider traps 100+ victims in its web as it moves into ransomware. “Scattered Spider, the crew behind at least one of the recent Las Vegas casino IT security breaches, has already hit some 100 organizations during its so-far brief tenure in the cybercrime scene, according to Mandiant. Further, as also witnessed in the ongoing MGM Resorts network outage, the gang, known for its social-engineering-based attacks, is now throwing data-stealing ransomware at victims, too.”
Ars Technica: How Google Authenticator made one company’s network breach much, much worse. “A security company is calling out a feature in Google’s authenticator app that it says made a recent internal network breach much worse. Retool, which helps customers secure their software development platforms, made the criticism on Wednesday in a post disclosing a compromise of its customer support system. The breach gave the attackers responsible access to the accounts of 27 customers, all in the cryptocurrency industry.”
WIRED: China-Linked Hackers Breached a Power Grid—Again. “Today, researchers on the Threat Hunter Team at Broadcom-owned security firm Symantec revealed that a Chinese hacker group with connections to APT41, which Symantec is calling RedFly, breached the computer network of a national power grid in an Asian country—though Symantec has declined to name which country was targeted. The breach began in February of this year and persisted for at least six months as the hackers expanded their foothold throughout the IT network of the country’s national electric utility, though it’s not clear how close the hackers came to gaining the ability to disrupt power generation or transmission.”
Clarkson University: Clarkson Professors Awarded Nearly $400k Grant from the NSF for Integrating Cybersecurity into Computing Curricula. “Four Clarkson Professors have received a $398K grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create and integrate Identity and Access Management (IAM)-themed project-based learning (PBL) curriculum into existing computer science and software engineering-related curricula.”
CISA: CISA Announces Open Source Software Security Roadmap . “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published the Open Source Software Security Roadmap today that articulates how the agency will enable the secure usage of open source software within the federal government and support a healthy, secure, and sustainable global open source software ecosystem.”
Bleeping Computer: Google: State hackers attack security researchers with new zero-day. “Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) says North Korean state hackers are again targeting security researchers in attacks using at least one zero-day in an undisclosed popular software. Researchers attacked in this campaign are involved in vulnerability research and development, according to Google’s team of security experts that protects the company’s users from state-sponsored attacks.”
WIRED: The International Criminal Court Will Now Prosecute Cyberwar Crimes. “In a little-noticed article released last month in the quarterly publication Foreign Policy Analytics, the International Criminal Court’s lead prosecutor, Karim Khan, spelled out that new commitment: His office will investigate cybercrimes that potentially violate the Rome Statute, the treaty that defines the court’s authority to prosecute illegal acts, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.”
Axios: Biden administration hires Twitter security whistleblower. “Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko, the high-profile hacker and Twitter security whistleblower, is joining the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Why it matters: Zatko’s hire brings more muscle to an agency that lacks — and doesn’t appear to want — regulatory authorities.”
Ars Technica: Hacker gains admin control of Sourcegraph and gives free access to the masses. “An unknown hacker gained administrative control of Sourcegraph, an AI-driven service used by developers at Uber, Reddit, Dropbox, and other companies, and used it to provide free access to resources that normally would have required payment.”
AFP: Half of Switzerland’s large companies have been the victim of a cyber attack. “Almost half of Switzerland’s large businesses have been the victim of cyber attacks, often with disastrous consequences, according to a study published on Monday. A report by SwissVR Monitor found that 45% of Swiss companies with 250 or more employees claim to have suffered at least one cyber attack.”
Space: Hackers shut down 2 of the world’s most advanced telescopes. “The National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab, reported that a cybersecurity incident that occurred on Aug. 1 has prompted the lab to temporarily halt operations at its Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii and Gemini South Telescope in Chile. Other, smaller telescopes on Cerro Tololo in Chile were also affected.”
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