state sponsored hackers

Pierluigi Paganini April 20, 2014
Mandiant uncovered Heartbleed based attacks to Hijack VPN sessions

Security experts at Mandiant uncovered attackers exploiting the Heartbleed vulnerability to circumvent Multi-factor Authentication on VPNs. We have practically read everything about HeartBleed bug which affects OpenSSL library, we have seen the effects on servers, on mobile devices and also on Tor anonymity,  now lets focus on the possibility to exploit it to hijack VPN […]

Pierluigi Paganini April 12, 2014
Heartbleed flaw was already exploited for cyber attacks by NSA

The US National Security Agency knew for at least two years about the Heartbleed flaw, and exploited it for cyber attacks according Bloomberg. The Internet community was shocked by the disclosure of the Heartbleed flaw, the vulnerability affects OpenSSL library and allows an attacker to reveal up to 64kB of memory to a connected client or […]

Pierluigi Paganini April 11, 2014
Reading the Mandiant M-Trends 2014 Threat Report

Mandiant has released its annual M-Trends 2014 Threat Report, a document that analyzes actors, means and motivations behind attacks observed in 2013. Mandiant FireEye company has released a new detailed report titled “M-Trends 2014 Threat Report” describing actors, means and tactics behind principal attacks conducted in the recent months. The report consolidated data on principal cyber […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 24, 2014
Cisco on large-scale attacks against unpatched or not updated servers

Cisco observed 400 hosts were infected on daily base and more than 2,700 URLs have been used in a multistage attack against websites running older OS versions. In the last months a growing number of large-scale attacks hit systems all over the world, many of them, like the Snake campaign, are attributable to state-sponsored hackers […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 16, 2014
Nearly 7600 critical infrastructure vulnerable to bugs in Yokogawa App

Security experts at Rapid7 firm have public disclosed a series of flaws affecting several thousands of critical infrastructure using Yokogawa software. Several thousands of critical infrastructure may still be vulnerable to SCADA flaws public disclosed this week. It has been estimated that more than 7,600 different chemicals, power and petrochemical plants are affected by the bugs disclosed […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 13, 2014
Is the Agent.btz malware the link between Snake and Red October?

The agent.btz malware may have served as starting point for malware Turla and the malicious code used in the Red October campaign. In the last weeks we have discussed about the Snake platform used in a large-scale cyber espionage campaign that targeted highly secured systems belonging to Governments and Military all over the world. Experts […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 08, 2014
SNAKE – The last cyber espionage campaign on a large scale

BAE Systems Applied Intelligence has disclosed a Russian cyber espionage campaign codenamed as SNAKE that targeted Governments and Military Networks. The British cyber specialist BAE Systems Applied Intelligence has disclosed a Russian cyber espionage campaign codenamed as SNAKE that remained undetected for a log time, at least for eight years. The malware can infiltrate Windows XP, Vista, 7 […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 03, 2014
Uroburos rootkit, is it part of Russian Cyber weapon programme?

Researchers at German G Data published an interesting analysis for Uroborun rootkit alleged to be a component of Russian cyber weapons programme. Uroburos is considered an advanced rootkit that is active since as far back as 2011, it is used to infect networks belonging to high-level targets, stealing data after setting up rogue P2P networks, it targets […]

Pierluigi Paganini March 02, 2014
Government-built malware and cyber weapons will run out of control

F-Secure’s Chief Mikko Hyppönen at the TrustyCon explained the risk that Government-built malware and cyber weapons will run out of control. F-Secure’s Chief Research Officer Company Mikko Hyppönen at the TrustyCon conference in San Francisco explained that almost every government is spending a great effort to improve its cyber capabilities building a cyber weapon. “Governments writing […]

Pierluigi Paganini February 07, 2014
Disconcerting Report on cybersecurity for US Government entities

A report issued by The Federal Government’s Track Record provides a scaring picture on cybersecurity for US Government entities. The US Government is a privileged target for cybercriminals, state-sponsored hackers and hacktivists, for years now, officials and politicians have warned of the risks related to a cyber attack. Leon Panetta, former Director of the Central […]