Reporting the details of the penetration testing conducted at the August 2011 DEFCON, researchers from Social-Engineer.org reported that by using social engineering techniques they were able trick employees into compromising the security of all 14 Fortune 500 companies that participated in DEFCON 19. To learn more about the power of social engineering at social-engineer.com.

In response to our posting Malware - Life Imitates Art, one of our followers directed our attention to the first season of the popular CBS series, NCIS.  In Seadog, season 1, episode 3, the team is called upon to investigate the death of a Naval Officer whose body has washed ashore.  The investigation begins as a routine drug case.  As the plot evolves, the investigation uncovers cyber warfare directed at the nation's power grid.  Fortunately, Gibbs and the team foil the plot at the last second. The 2003 fictional attack on the US power grid is now reality as reported by the Wall Street [...]

Yesterday, the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive released a report to Congress entitled, Foreign Spies Stealing US Economic Secrets In Cyberspace.  The report paints a disturbing picture: US Technologies and Trade Secrets at Risk in Cyberspace Foreign collectors of sensitive economic information are able to operate in cyberspace with relatively little risk of detection by their private sector targets. The proliferation of malicious software, prevalence of cyber tool sharing, use of hackers as proxies, and routing of operations through third countries make it difficult to attribute responsibility for computer network intrusions. Cyber tools have enhanced the economic espionage threat, and [...]

The Ottawa Citizen reports that cybercriminals used spearphishing emails to gain access to the Canadian Government's Finance Department and Treasury Board networks. The intruders sent emails to high-ranking department officials containing a link to a webpage infected with a sophisticated virus. They also sent infected PDF files that, when opened, unleashed more malicious code to target and download government secrets. Quoting unnamed government sources, the article says that the cybercriminals were after information about Canada's potash industry.  A January 31, 2011 government memo said,  "data has been exfiltrated and that privileged accounts have been compromised."  

The networks of Japan's parliament were compromised for more than a month and hackers may have stolen sensitive emails and documents from 480 lawmakers and their staff, according to a Japanese national daily newspaper. The Asahi Shimbun today reported that the lower house of the Japanese legislature has been compromised by a spearphishing attack.  The breach began in July, when a representative opened a malicious email, and continued until late August.  The article reports that the attackers had access to documents and email of the Diet's 480 lower house members and other personnel.  The attack appeared to target confidential information [...]

The news is full of stories of crucial systems being infiltrating by malware.   The Stuxnet code caused Iranian nuclear centrifuges to self-destruct.  The U.S. Predator and Reaper drones have been infected with malware.  Malware attacks are not limited to the Earth -- the International Space Station has been infected more than once.  The White House considered cyber attacks on Libya. Some of these incidents, such as Iranian centrifuges self-destructing, seem like something from a spy novel or James Bond movie.  It made us wonder about life imitating art.  We found the case of a laser satellite being sabotaged by infiltration of malicious code. This is [...]