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The cold cyber war has just turned hot. According to a story published  today by the New York Times, Israeli government hackers hacked into Kaspersky's network in 2015 and caught Russian government hackers red-handed hacking US government hackers with the help of Kaspersky. In other words — Russia spying on America, Israel spying on Russia and America spying on everyone. What the F^#% is going around? It is like one is blaming another for doing exactly the same thing it is doing against someone else. Wow! Well, the fact that everyone is spying on everyone is neither new nor any secret. However, somehow now Kaspersky Labs is at the centre of this international espionage tale for its alleged devil role. Just last week, the Wall Street Journal, an American media agency, published a story against the Kaspersky, a Russian antivirus provider, claiming that the Russian government hackers stole highly classified NSA documents and hacking tools in 2015 from a staffer's home ...

The new documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has exposed a United States secretive facility located near a remote town in Australia's Northern Territory for covertly monitoring wireless communications and aiding US military missions. The leaked documents have come from the massive trove of classified material stolen by Snowden from the US National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 that exposed the extent of the US government's global surveillance programs. The newly released classified documents, obtained by The Intercept, contained references to a secretive facility, which was codenamed "Rainfall," but is officially known as the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap . The documents reveal that the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, located outside Alice Springs, deployed cutting-edge satellite technology for detailed geolocation intelligence that helps the US military locate targets for special forces and drone strikes . The use of unmanned air v...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

The world's largest online professional network LinkedIn could face a ban in Russia after the company has failed to comply with a Russian data localization law that compels companies to keep data on Russian users in their country. If you are not aware, LinkedIn is the only major social network which is not banned in China, because the company agreed to cooperate with the Chinese government and remove controversial content. However, LinkedIn could be the first social network in Russia to be blocked by the Russian state's federal media regulator, called Roskomnadzor, for not complying with the rules. In July 2014, the Russia approved amendments to the Russian Personal Data Law which came into force in 1st September 2015, under which foreign tech companies were required to store the personal data of its citizens within the country. However, Russia was not the first country to enforce such law on foreign tech companies. A few months ago, Iran also imposed new regulations...

Almost two months ago, the FBI quietly arrested NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin III for stealing an enormous number of top secret documents from the intelligence agency. Now, according to a court document filed Thursday, the FBI seized at least 50 terabytes of data from 51-year-old Martin that he siphoned from government computers over two decades. The stolen data that are at least 500 million pages of government records includes top-secret information about "national defense." If all data stolen by Martin found indeed classified, it would be the largest NSA heist, far bigger than Edward Snowden leaks. According to the new filing, Martin also took "six full bankers' boxes" worth of documents, many of which were marked "Secret" and "Top Secret." The stolen data also include the personal information of government employees. The stolen documents date from between 1996 through 2016. "The document appears to have been printed by the...

The cyber attack vectors available to hackers will continue to grow as the Internet of Things (IoTs) become more commonplace, making valuable data accessible through an ever-widening selection of entry points. Although it's not the hackers alone, the NSA is also behind the Internet of Things. We already know the United States National Security Agency's (NSA) power to spy on American as well as foreign people – thanks to the revelations made by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. But, now the agency is looking for new ways to collect even more data on foreign intelligence, and for this, the NSA is researching the possibilities of exploiting internet-connected biomedical devices ranging from thermostats to pacemakers. During a military technology conference in Washington D.C. on Friday, NSA deputy director Richard Ledgett said his agency officials are "looking at it sort of theoretically from a research point of view right now." Ledgett totally agreed o...

Featured Image Only. See Original leaked images below. In a joint surveillance program, the US intelligence agency NSA ( National Security Agency ) and the British intelligence agency GCHQ ( Government Communications Headquarters ) hacked into, decrypted, and tracked live video feeds of Israeli Military Drones and Fighter Jets . This could be one of the most shocking and embarrassing disclosures for Israel, who is the United States' ally and prides itself on its technical capabilities. Published by The Intercept, the newly released documents from the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that in an operation dubbed " Anarchist ," UK and US intelligence officials have been… ...regularly accessing Israeli drone cameras, allowing them to watch live video feeds from drones and fighter jets while Israel bombed Gaza and spied on Syria. But, how the intelligence officials were able to do so. Also Read: Google Wants to Fly Drones Over Your Head ...

Rejoice! From this morning, you can call freely to anyone, talk anything without any fear of being spied by the United States National Security Agency (NSA), as the agency is not allowed to collect bulk phone records . Until now we all are aware of the NSA's bulk phone surveillance program – thanks to former NSA employee Edward Snowden , who leaked the very first top secret documents of the agency in 2013. However, more than two years later of the first revelation, that bulk phone surveillance program has finally come to an end. End of Bulk Phone Surveillance Program The White House announced Friday evening on the intelligence community's official Tumblr that the NSA will officially be shutting down its bulk phone surveillance program by Sunday, November 29. Under this program, the US intelligence agency collected only the " metadata " that reveals data related to the called phone numbers (i.e. which numbers are calling and what time they ...

This is Really Insane!! Germany's top intelligence agency handed over details related to German citizen metadata just in order to obtain a copy of the National Security Agency's Main XKeyscore software , which was first revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013. According to the new documents obtained by the German newspaper Die Zeit, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ( BfV - Bundesamtes für Verfassungsschutz ) traded data of its citizens for surveillance software from their US counterparts. Germany and the United States signed an agreement that would allow German spies to obtain a copy of the NSA's flagship tool Xkeyscore, to analyse data gathered in Germany. So they covertly illegally traded access to Germans' data with the NSA. XKeyscore surveillance software program was designed by the National Security Agency to collect and analyse intercepted data it obtains traveling over a network. The surveillance software is powerful...

Fed up with the NSA-Snowden updates ? Wait a second...there's some more! Back in May 2013, when former NSA employee Edward Snowden leaked classified documents from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), we doubted the relationship between NSA and telecommunications giant AT&T. But, now their relationship has been revealed – NSA and AT&T are Best Friends . Yes, that's right, as recent revelations say that how desperately NSA relied on AT&T for its vast spying operations in the United States. NSA–AT&T's 30-Years-Old Friendship AT&T provided telecommunication interception facility to the United States' National Security Agency (NSA), and since 1985 they have been working hand in hand . AT&T cooperated in provided technical assistance in a manner that followed a secret court order which permitted the wiretapping of all Internet communications at the United Nations headquarters (also a customer of AT&T). Acc...

The National Security Agency will restrict access to, and ultimately destroy, millions of US phone records previously collected by the spy agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) announced Monday. The federal law was passed in June ending the NSA's bulk collection of U.S. Citizen's Telephone records and destroying the data it collected under a controversial global spying program disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. So far, the ODNI didn't specify when the agency would destroy these metadata records , but noted that the metadata must be retained until the lawsuits around the metadata collection program are ongoing. NSA's Bulk Metadata Collection is illegal Section 215 of the Patriot Act legally authorizes the law enforcement agencies to collect "any tangible things" that the government proves are connected or linked to an investigation into any suspected terrorist. However, the verdict in May ruled that the mas...

In response to the threat of intelligence agencies like NSA and GCHQ, Security researchers from American and Israeli academics have developed a new advanced Tor client called Astoria specially designed to make eavesdropping harder . Tor (The Onion Router) is the most popular anonymity network that is intended to allow a user to browse the Internet anonymously via a volunteer network of more than 6000 relays/nodes. The encrypted traffic of a user is being routed through multiple relays in the network. The user-relay connection is known as a circuit. Tor does not share your identifying information like your IP address and physical location with websites or service providers on the receiving end because they don't know who is visiting. Timing Attacks yet a major issue: However, Tor isn't as safe from the prying eyes of network level attackers as we once thought. Big spying agencies like the United States intelligence agency NSA and the British Governmen...

US Court rules NSA Phone surveillance Program is illegal United States' National Security Agency (NSA) Spying program that systematically collects data about Millions of Americans' phone calls in bulk is illegal – Yes illegal. The NSA Phone surveillance program, first disclosed by the former NSA employee and whistleblower of global surveillance Edward Snowden , ruled illegal by a New York federal appeals court on Thursday, ordering lawmakers to either completely end or replace the program. Mass Collection of Metadata: Under this program, the U.S. agency has collected information about phone numbers called and how many times it has been called. However, no content of conversations has been recorded. The program also allegedly spied on European firms and among the individuals targeted was German Chancellor Angela Merkel . However, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York issued a 97-page in-depth court ruling , in which all the three judges said...

Security researchers at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have worked for almost a decade to target security keys used to encrypt data stored on Apple devices in order to break the system. Citing the top-secret documents obtained from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, The Intercept blog reported that among an attempt to crack encryption keys implanted into Apple's mobile processor, the researchers working for CIA had created a dummy version of Xcode . CIA's WEAPON TO HACK APPLE DEVICES Xcode is an Apple's application development tool used by the company to create the vast majority of iOS apps. However using the compromised development software, CIA, NSA or other spies agencies were potentially allowed to inject surveillance backdoor into programs distributed on Apple's App Store. In addition, the custom version of Xcode could also be used to spy on users, steal passwords, account information, intercept communications, and disable core security features of...

Edward Snowden is back with one of the biggest revelations about the government's widespread surveillance program. The US National Security Agency ( NSA ) and British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters ( GCHQ ) hacked into the networks of the world's biggest SIM card manufacturer, according to top-secret documents given to The Intercept by former NSA-contractor-turned-whistle blower, Edward Snowden . OPERATION DAPINO GAMMA The leaked documents suggests that in a joint operation, the NSA and the GCHQ formed the Mobile Handset Exploitation Team (MHET) in April 2010, and as the name suggests, the unit was built to target vulnerabilities in cellphone. Under an operation dubbed DAPINO GAMMA, the unit hacked into a Digital security company Gemalto , the largest SIM card manufacturer in the world, and stole SIM Card Encryption Keys that are used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications. Gemalto, a huge company that operates in 85 countr...

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) may be hiding highly-sophisticated hacking payloads in the firmware of consumer hard drives over the last 15 to 20 years in a campaign, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on thousands of targets' computers, according to an analysis by Kaspersky labs and subsequent reports. 'EQUATION GROUP' BEHIND THE MALWARE The team of malicious actors is dubbed the the " Equation Group " by researchers from Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, and describes them as " probably one of the most sophisticated cyber attack groups in the world," and "the most advanced threat actor we have seen. " The security researchers have documented 500 infections by Equation Group and believes that the actual number of victims likely reaches into the tens of thousands because of a self-destruct mechanism built into the malware. TOP MANUFACTURERS' HARD DRIVES ARE INFECTED Russian security experts reportedly uncovered sta...

​Researchers have uncovered a new evidence that a powerful computer program discovered last year, called " Regin ", is "identical in functionality" to a piece of malware used by the National Security Agency  (NSA) and its Five Eyes allies . REGIN MALWARE "Regin" is a highly advanced, sophisticated piece of malware the researchers believe was developed by nation state to spy on a wide-range of international targets including governments, infrastructure operators and other high-profile individuals since at least 2008. Regin was first discovered in November 2014 by the researchers at antivirus software maker Symantec and was said to be more sophisticated than both Stuxnet and Duqu . The malware alleged to have been used against targets in Algeria, Afghanistan, Belgium, Brazil, Fiji, Germany, Iran, India, Indonesia, Kiribati, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia and Syria, among others. The recent evidence comes from the journalists at Der Spiege...