Will 2019 be the year everyone finally learns their
security lessons? I doubt it.
Davey Winder writes:
It hasn’t been the greatest week for the non-profit sector with the revelation that two well-known charities have fallen victim to less than charitable cyber con-artists. In the same week that the Save the Children Federation confirmed it had been scammed out of $1 million by email fraudsters, so the Wellcome Trust has revealed the email of four senior executives was compromised and sensitive information monitored for several months. Without wishing to be uncharitable, both of these cyber-attacks fall firmly into the ‘oldest trick in the book’ category.
Let me start by saying that I am not in the habit of victim shaming; the focus must be on the threat actor when it comes to attributing bad guy status. That said, as we fast approach 2019, I also think the time for pussy-footing around the lack of security awareness issue within many large organizations has long since passed. The Wellcome Trust is most certainly a large organization any which way you look at it; in fact, with some £26 billion of assets, it is the biggest charity in Britain. So, when I read in my copy of the Times today that no less than four senior executives were “misled into entering their passwords when sent a link to click on” my will live to live starts fading away.
Read more on Forbes.
If the best you can do is identify “last year’s”
election interference, the 2020 election is doomed!
Facebook
suspends 5 accounts for 'inauthentic behavior' during Alabama special
election
… One of the accounts that Facebook suspended
belonged to Jonathon Morgan, the chief executive of research firm New
Knowledge. Morgan confirmed that his account had been suspended
through a New Knowledge spokesperson.
Morgan told The
Washington Post on Dec. 18 that he had engaged in an experiment
with misleading online tactics during the 2017 special election in
Alabama.
During race between Republican Roy Moore and
Democrat Doug Jones, who was elected to serve in the U.S. Senate,
Morgan told the Post he created a Facebook page under false pretenses
to test his ability to appeal to conservative voters, according to
the
report.
A great summary.
Privacy and
Cybersecurity: A Global Year-End Review
Perspective. It is amazing that this did not
happen much earlier. Implications for smartphone manufacturers.
The GPS
wars have begun
… Countries around the world, including China,
Japan, India and the United Kingdom plus the European Union are
exploring, testing and deploying satellites to build out their own
positioning capabilities.
That’s a massive change for the United States,
which for decades has had a practical monopoly on determining the
location of objects through its Global
Positioning System (GPS), a military service of the Air Force
built during the Cold War that has allowed commercial uses since
mid-2000 (for a short history of GPS, check
out this article, or for the comprehensive history, here’s
the book-length treatment).
… Today, the only global alternative to that
system is Russia’s GLONASS, which
reached full global coverage a couple of years ago following an
aggressive program by Russian president Vladimir Putin to rebuild it
after it had degraded following the break-up of the Soviet Union.
This seemed a little “off.” But it did help
to ‘justify’ resuming flights.
Gatwick
drones pair 'no longer suspects'
The 47-year-old man and 54-year-old woman, from
Crawley, West Sussex, were arrested on Friday night on suspicion of
"the criminal use of drones".
Sussex Police said the pair were no longer
suspects.
Meanwhile, Det Ch Supt Jason Tingley told Sky News
officers had found a damaged drone near the airport.
… Det Ch Supt Tingley said the arrested man
and woman had "fully co-operated" with inquiries and he was
"satisfied that they are no longer suspects in the drone
incidents at Gatwick".
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