Tuesday, July 18, 2017

The Internet version of Willie Sutton?  Hack “where the money’s at!” 
Hacker Steals $7 Million in Ethereum From CoinDash
An actor managed to hack the CoinDash official website during the company's ICO (Initial Coin Offering) and diverted over $7 million worth of Ethereum by replacing the official wallet address with their own.
The incident took place on Monday, just minutes after the company launched its ICO in an attempt to raise funds in the form of Ethereum crypto-currency.  Similar to an (IPO) Initial Public Offering, an ICO happens when a company is looking to gather funds and issue tokens in return.
According to CoinDash, the hacker managed to take over the official website only three minutes after the ICO started.  They replaced the official Ethereum wallet address with their own, which resulted in people sending over $7 million to the fradulent address.


How do you get the attention of someone who gives a damn? 
Myspace let you hijack any account just by knowing the person’s birthday
If you haven’t deleted your decade-plus old Myspace account yet, now may be the time to do it.  As it turns out, it’s been embarrassingly easy for someone to break into and steal any account on the site.
Security researcher Leigh-Anne Galloway posted details of the flaw on her blog this morning after months of trying to get Myspace to fix it — and hearing nothing back from the company.  Only today, after the issue became widely publicized, did Myspace finally remove the flaw.


Security incidents can be expensive.  FedEx bought TNT last year and apparently did not fully upgrade their systems.  That might have kept the virus out. 
FedEx says cyber attack to hurt full-year results
Package delivery company FedEx Corp (FDX.N) said a disruption in services in its TNT Express unit following a cyber attack last month would hurt its full-year results.
FedEx's shares fell as much as 3.4 percent to $211.53 in early trading as the company said the financial impact of the disruption on its results was likely to be "material".
The Netherlands-based TNT Express is still experiencing widespread service delays following the attack, caused by the Petya cyber virus that spread through a Ukrainian tax software product, FedEx said.
FedEx said it lost revenue due to decreased volumes at TNT Express and incurred incremental costs from contingency plans and remediation of affected systems.
The company said it did not have an insurance in place that covered the impact from the cyber attack.  


If this was the Russians, they are much worse at hacking than I thought.  Note that success would not change a single vote, but it might allow them to register a few million new voters for the next election. 
Nearly 150,000 attempts to hack SC voter registration system on Election Day: report
Hackers tried to infiltrate South Carolina’s voter registration system nearly 150,000 times on Election Day 2016, according to a South Carolina State Election Commission report detailed in The Wall Street Journal.
South Carolina, which President Trump won by a wide margin during the election, did not find evidence that would suggest the attempted breaches were successful, the paper reported.

(Related).  Looks like everyone is trying to manipulate someone via social media.
Paper – Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation
by on
Samantha Bradshaw & Philip N. Howard, Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation. Samuel Woolley and Philip N. Howard, Eds. Working Paper 2017.12. Oxford, UK: Project on Computational Propaganda.  comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/. 37 pp.
“Cyber troops are government, military or political party teams committed to manipulating public opinion over social media.  In this working paper, we report on specific organizations created, often with public money, to help define and manage what is in the best interest of the public.  We compare such organizations across 28 countries, and inventory them according to the kinds of messages, valences and communication strategies used.  We catalogue their organizational forms and evaluate their capacities in terms of budgets and staffing.  This working paper summarizes the findings of the first comprehensive inventory of the major organizations behind social media manipulation.  We find that cyber troops are a pervasive and global phenomenon.  Many different countries employ significant numbers of people and resources to manage and manipulate public opinion online, sometimes targeting domestic audiences and sometimes targeting foreign publics.  The earliest reports of organized social media manipulation emerged in 2010, and by 2017 there are details on such organizations in 28 countries.  Looking across the 28 countries, every authoritarian regime has social media campaigns targeting their own populations, while only a few of them target foreign publics.  In contrast, almost every democracy in this sample has organized social media campaigns that target foreign publics, while political-party-supported campaigns target domestic voters.  Authoritarian regimes are not the only or even the best at organized social media manipulation.  The earliest reports of government involvement in nudging public opinion involve democracies, and new innovations in political communication technologies often come from political parties and arise during high-profile elections.  Over time, the primary mode for organizing cyber troops has gone from involving military units that experiment with manipulating public opinion over social media networks to strategic communication firms that take contracts from governments for social media campaigns.”


Hacking is hot (even if misunderstood) in Washington.
Intel, Defense Bills Amended to Include Russian Hacking
Intelligence and defense policy legislation passed last week shows that the United States government is increasingly concerned about cyberattacks, particularly attacks coming from Russia.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the House of Representatives passed on Friday, specifies the budget and expenditures of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
The list of amendments for the fiscal year 2018 includes several issues related to cyber capabilities.  One of the adopted amendments requires the DoD to update its cyber strategy, to require the president to create a strategy for using offensive cyber capabilities, and providing technical assistance to NATO members.
   The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, which the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence unanimously advanced on Thursday, also references Russia.
The Intelligence Authorization Act, which authorizes funding for the U.S. intelligence community, requires the Director of National Intelligence to submit a report assessing the most significant Russian influence campaigns aimed at foreign elections.
Without specifically naming Russia, the bill also requires an unclassified advisory report on foreign counterintelligence and cybersecurity threats to federal election campaigns.  This comes after the U.S. officially accused Russia of attempting to interfere with last year’s presidential election.


Secret is good? 
Federal court rejects challenge to national security data requests
The Federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that gag orders issued with warrant-like national security letters do not violate the First Amendment.
National security letters serve the same functions as a warrant but do not require judicial oversight.


The FBI is keeping us safe!
Consumer Notice: Internet-Connected Toys Could Present Privacy and Contact Concerns for Children
The FBI encourages consumers to consider cyber security prior to introducing smart, interactive, internet-connected toys into their homes or trusted environments.  Smart toys and entertainment devices for children are increasingly incorporating technologies that learn and tailor their behaviors based on user interactions.  These toys typically contain sensors, microphones, cameras, data storage components, and other multimedia capabilities – including speech recognition and GPS options.  These features could put the privacy and safety of children at risk due to the large amount of personal information that may be unwittingly disclosed.


Interesting discussion.
Video: The Impact of Machine Learning on Work Is Bigger Than You Think
Despite much hype about artificial intelligence, we’re actually underestimating what’s coming, said MIT researcher Andrew McAfee in a fireside chat with his long-time MIT collaborator, Erik Brynjolfsson.  This discussion, moderated by former MIT Technology Review editor in chief Jason Pontin, offers insights about the impact of technology-based innovations on business and society from two of the most influential thinkers in this area.


No doubt some will claim this is a monopoly crushing the competition.  On the other hand, must Amazon stay out of markets just because they are large? 
Amazon tanks Blue Apron’s stock with one trademark filing
Blue Apron shares fell as much as 12 percent Monday following an ominous sign that Amazon is preparing a move into its niche market for meal-kit deliveries.
On July 6, about a week after Blue Apron priced its IPO, Amazon applied to register a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the slogan “We do the prep.  You be the chef.” The phrase could be a stand-in slogan for Blue Apron, which has registered “A better way to cook.”

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