Security News for the Week Ending March 11, 2022
Trump is Not Happy About Launch of Twitter-Like Truth Social
Apparently not happy is a bit of an understatement. He has a lot to lose if this is not successful. As part of the SPAC deal with Digital World, he has a lot of shares. If the stock, which is still going up slowly, tanks, he stands to lose a bunch of dough. Many people who downloaded the app said that they could not create accounts or were waitlisted. The reality is that people use social media to stay connected and if you have a choice between Twitter’s billions of users and Truth Social’s thousands of users, the choice is pretty clear. Analysis suggests that it is doing about the same as or worse than Gab and Gettr, which is also a problem. Twitter won because it was the only player. Now you have 3 players all going after the same highly targeted slice of market. At least it has not been hacked (publicly) since it’s launch which is more than Gab and Gettr can say. Credit: MSN
Hackers Targeted US LNG Producers in Run-Up to Ukraine Invasion
In February hacjkers penetrated computers belonging to current and former employees at nearly two dozen major natural gas suppliers including Chevron and Kinder Morgan.
Security firm Rescurity discovered a small group of hackers including one linked to Strontium, nickname for a hacking group inside Russia’s GRU military intelligence.
The wanted to gain and maintain access into the U.S. energy supply so that they could destabilize the world energy market when Russia invaded Ukraine. Unfortunately for Putin, while these early attacks were successful, they were discovered before they could do any significant damage. Credit: Bloomberg Quint
Google Acquires Mandiant for $5 Billion in Cash
It is nice to be able to write a check for $5 billion. Mandiant, best known for its breach response and threat intelligence services, is being acquired by Google. Depending on what Google does with it, that could be good news for Google cloud services users. Mandiant does have its own cloud security products and together, if Google doesn’t do anything stupid, it will give Mandiant access to a lot of capital. Credit: CSO Online
Alexa, Go Hack Yourself
The good news is that Amazon patched this feature after researchers demonstrated that they could get an Alexa to unlock your door, set your microwave to run with nothing in it, possibly causing a fire and other cute stuff. The attack is very simple, so it is good that it has been patched now. Aren’t you glad that you don’t have any smart devices in your house? Credit: Ars Technica
Chinese Use Herd Management App to Hack State Networks
Mandiant says that the Chinese hackers APT41 AKA Barium used a bug in an app that many state governments use to track animal diseases in livestock herds called USAHERDS. Mandiant warned the developer of the high severity bug and they have patched it. In the meantime, Mandiant thinks the Chinese have successfully hacked at least 6 state government networks. Maybe as many as 18 states. Think about that before you install that next app. Credit: Wired
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