Security News for the Week Ending September 18, 2020
Is TikTok is Going to Sell to Oracle. Maybe
Well sale is not really the right word. They call it a “trusted tech partner”. This does not solve the national security problem, so it is not clear what problem this does solve. None the less, Steve Mnuchin will present it to the President. If it provides some sort of political benefit he may accept it even though it does nothing for national security. If it shuts down, there will be 10 million unhappy people, some of whom vote. Also, it doesn’t seem that this deal fulfills the President’s requirement that the Treasury get a lot of money. It seems like they won’t get any. Credit: The Verge
Updated information says that there will be a new corporate entity set up in the U.S. to give the President some cover that he is really improving security and that Oracle will have some sort of minority stake in this new entity, but China will still control all of the intellectual property. The President’s deadline is this Sunday. Will he really shut it down pissing off millions of Americans just before the election? Credit: The Verge
Even more updated: The Commerce Department says that a partial ban will go into effect Sunday. As of Sunday, U.S. companies can no longer distribute WeChat and TikTok, but users can continue to use the software. Also beginning Sunday, it will be illegal to host or transfer traffic associated with WeChat and the same for TikTok, but on November 12 (coincidentally, after the election). I assume that will mean that users who want to use those apps will have to VPN into other countries before using the apps. Not terribly convenient, but a way to keep the pressure up on China. Credit: CNN
Cerberus Banking Trojan Source Code Available for Free
The Russian security vendor Kaspersky (reminder: the U.S. has banned it from government systems) has announced the the Cerberus source code is now available for free. This means that any hacker with the skill to integrate it can make it part of their malware. Cerberus is a pretty nasty piece of work; it even has the ability to capture two factor codes sent via text message (one reason why I say that text message two factor is the least secure method). This means that banks and people that use banks (which is pretty much most of us) need to be on high alert when it comes to our financial account security. Credit: ZDNet
Denial of Service Attacks up 151% in First Half of 2020
Denial of service attacks are a brute force attack that aims to hurt a business by stopping a company’s customers from getting access to the company’s (typically) web site. For example, if you are an online business and customers and potential customers cannot get to your web site, they will likely go to another vendor. What is now amazingly called a small attack (less than 5 gigabytes of garbage thrown at your web site per second) are up 200% over last year. Very large attacks (100 gigabytes per second or more) are up 275%, according to Cambridge University.
If you are not prepared to deal with an attack and need help, please contact us. Credit: Dark Reading
Ransomware at German Hospital Results in 1 Death
This could have wound up much worse when hackers compromised Duesseldorf University Hospital. The hospital put itself on life support and ambulances were diverted to other hospitals. While police communicated with the hackers and told them they hacked a hospital, an ambulance was diverted and the patient died. Prosecutors, if they can find the miscreants, may charge them with negligent homicide. The hackers did withdraw the ransom demand and forked up the decryption key, but not before this patient lost his or her life. Credit: Bleeping Computer
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