‘Very High Level of Confidence’ Russia Used Kaspersky Software For Devastating NSA Leaks

bricko shares a report from Yahoo Finance: Three months after U.S. officials asserted that Russian intelligence used popular antivirus company Kaspersky to steal U.S. classified information, there are indications that the alleged espionage is related to a public campaign of highly damaging NSA leaks by a mysterious group called the Shadow Brokers. In August 2016, the Shadow Brokers began leaking classified NSA exploit code that amounted to hacking manuals. In October 2017, U.S. officials told major U.S. newspapers that Russian intelligence leveraged software sold by Kaspersky to exfiltrate classified documents from certain computers. (Kaspersky software, like all antivirus software, requires access to everything stored on a computer so that it can scan for malicious software.) And last week the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. investigators “now believe that those manuals [leaked by Shadow Brokers] may have been obtained using Kaspersky to scan computers on which they were stored.” Members of the computer security industry agree with that suspicion. “I think there’s a very high level of confidence that the Shadow Brokers dump was directly related to Kaspersky … and it’s very much attributable, ” David Kennedy, CEO of TrustedSec, told Yahoo Finance. “Unfortunately, we can only hear that from the intelligence side about how they got that information to see if it’s legitimate.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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‘Very High Level of Confidence’ Russia Used Kaspersky Software For Devastating NSA Leaks

This is what a 50-qubit quantum computer looks like

From afar, it looks like a steampunk chandelier. Or an intricate collection of tubes and wires that culminate in a small steel cylinder at the bottom. It is, in fact, one of the most sophisticated quantum computers ever built. The processor inside has 50 quantum bits, or qubits, that process tasks in a (potentially) revolutionary way. Normally, information is created and stored as a series of ones and zeroes. Qubits can represent both values at the same time (known as superposition), which means a quantum computer can theoretically test the two simultaneously. Add more qubits and this hard-to-believe computational power increases. Last November, IBM unveiled the world’s first 50-qubit quantum computer. It lives in a laboratory, inside a giant white case, with pumps to keep it cool and some traditional computers to manage the tasks or algorithms being initiated. At CES this year, the company brought the innards — the wires and tubes required to send signals to the chip and keep the system cool — so reporters and attendees could better understand how it works. The biggest challenge, IBM Research Vice President Jeffrey Welser told me, is isolating the chip from unwanted “noise.” This includes electrical, magnetic and thermal noise — just the temperature of the room renders the whole machine useless. That’s where the pumps would normally come in. From top to bottom, the system gradually cools from four Kelvin — liquid-helium temperatures — to 800 milliKelvin, 100 milliKelvin and, finally, 10 milliKelvin. Inside the canister, that’s 10 millionths of a degree absolute zero. The wires, meanwhile, carry RF-frequency signals down to the chip. These are then mapped onto the qubits, executing whatever program the research team wishes to run. The wiring is also designed in a way to ensure that no extraneous noise — including heat — is transported to the quantum computer chip at the bottom. Many in the industry have suggested that a 50-qubit system could achieve “quantum supremacy.” The term refers to the moment when a quantum computer is able to outperform a traditional system or accomplish a task otherwise thought impossible. The problem, though, is that quantum computers are only compatible with certain algorithms. They’re well-suited to quantum chemistry, for instance, and material simulations. But it’s unlikely you’ll ever use a quantum computer to complete a PowerPoint presentation. “The world is not classical, it’s quantum, so if you want to simulate it you need a quantum computer, ” Welser said. Researchers have already conducted experiments with quantum computers. Scientists at IBM were able to simulate beryllium hydride (BeH2) on a seven-qubit quantum processor last September, for example. But critics want to see a quantum computer accomplish something more tangible, which is more meaningful for the everyday consumer. That day, unfortunately, could still be a long way off. “Somewhere between 50 and 100 qubits, we’ll reach the point where we can at least say very clearly, ‘I’ve just simulated a molecule here in a few minutes time that would have taken this giant system five days to do.’ That level we’ll be at fairly rapidly. When it gets to something that the public will understand in terms of an application they would use themselves, I can’t really speculate at this point, ” Welser said. Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

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This is what a 50-qubit quantum computer looks like

The Underground Uber Networks Driven by Russian Hackers

Joseph Cox, reporting for DailyBeat: Uber’s ride-sharing service has given birth to some of the most creative criminal scams to date, including using a GPS-spoofing app to rip off riders in Nigeria, and even ginning up fake drivers by using stolen identities. Add to those this nefariously genius operation: Cybercriminals, many working in Russia, have created their own illegitimate taxi services for other crooks by piggybacking off Uber’s ride-sharing platform, sometimes working in collaboration with corrupt drivers. Based on several Russian-language posts across a number of criminal-world sites, this is how the scam works: The scammer needs an emulator, a piece of software which allows them to run a virtual Android phone on their laptop with the Uber app, as well as a virtual private network (VPN), which routes their computer’s traffic through a server in the same city as the rider. The scammer acts, in essence, as a middleman between an Uber driver and the passenger — ordering trips through the Uber app, but relaying messages outside of it. Typically, this fraudulent dispatcher uses the messaging app Telegram to chat with the passenger, who provides pickup and destination addresses. The scammer orders the trip, and then provides the car brand, driver name, and license plate details back to the passenger through Telegram. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The Underground Uber Networks Driven by Russian Hackers

Cyberstalking Suspect Arrested After VPN Providers Shared Logs With the FBI

An anonymous reader writes: “VPN providers often advertise their products as a method of surfing the web anonymously, claiming they never store logs of user activity, ” writes Bleeping Computer, “but a recent criminal case shows that at least some do store user activity logs.” According to the FBI, VPN providers played a key role in identifying an aggressive cyberstalker by providing detailed logs to authorities, even if they claimed in their privacy policies that they don’t. The suspect is a 24-year-old man that hacked his roommate, published her private journal, made sexually explicit collages, sent threats to schools in the victim’s name, and registered accounts on adult portals, sending men to the victim’s house… FBI agents also obtained Google records on their suspect, according to a 29-page affidavit which, ironically, includes the text of one of his tweets warning people that VPN providers do in fact keep activity logs. “If they can limit your connections or track bandwidth usage, they keep logs.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cyberstalking Suspect Arrested After VPN Providers Shared Logs With the FBI

Ancient Papyrus Finally Solves Egypt’s ‘Great Pyramid’ Mystery

schwit1 was the first Slashdot reader to bring us the news. Newsweek reports: Archaeologists believe they have found the key to unlocking a mystery almost as old as the Great Pyramid itself: Who built the structure and how were they able to transport two-ton blocks of stone to the ancient wonder more than 4, 500 years ago…? Experts had long established that the stones from the pyramid’s chambers were transported from as far away as Luxor, more than 500 miles to the south of Giza, the location of the Great Pyramid, but had never agreed how they got there. However, the diary of an overseer, uncovered in the seaport of Wadi al-Jafr, appears to answer the age-old question, showing the ancient Egyptians harnessed the power of the Nile to transport the giant blocks of stone. According to a new British documentary Egypt’s Great Pyramid: The New Evidence, which aired on the U.K.’s Channel 4 on Sunday, the Great Pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu, was built using an intricate system of waterways which allowed thousands of workers to pull the massive stones, floated on boats, into place with ropes. Along with the papyrus diary of the overseer, known as Merer, the archaeologists uncovered a ceremonial boat and a system of waterworks. The ancient text described how Merer’s team dug huge canals to channel the water of the Nile to the pyramid. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ancient Papyrus Finally Solves Egypt’s ‘Great Pyramid’ Mystery

Equifax CEO Richard Smith suddenly decides to ‘retire’

Equifax has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, following a chain of blunders and mismanagement after it revealed that a security breach leaked the personal data of 143 million people . This morning, the CEO of Equifax and chairman of its board, Richard Smith, retired effective immediately. In a release, Equifax stated that it has appointed Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr., as interim CEO. He’s been with the company for seven years and most recently was the president of Equifax’s Asia Pacific division. Smith will stay on as an unpaid advisor to oversee a smooth transition. He cites the reason for his departure as the data breach: “At this critical juncture, I believe it is in the best interests of the company to have new leadership to move the company forward, ” he said. Smith is the latest casualty of the epic breach (their Chief Security Officer and Chief Information Officer also “retired” ), which has been catastrophically mishandled by Equifax. The company’s failure to patch a well-known security hole is the reason hackers were able to gain access to the data. The company’s executives are also under DOJ investigation for suspiciously timed stock sales that occurred after Equifax realized the breach had occurred but before it disclosed information to the public. And their credit freeze pins had security issues of their own . It’s unclear whether new management will ease Equifax’s woes, after how mishandled this entire breach has been from the start. Senators have called for credit report changes , allowing for consumers to have more power over their information. It makes sense; credit agencies should be held accountable when they make terrible errors in judgment and don’t take action to protect the sensitive personal data they handle every day. Via: CNBC Source: Equifax

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Equifax CEO Richard Smith suddenly decides to ‘retire’

Microsoft outlines the upgrade procedures for Xbox One X

Enlarge / Prepare yourself… Last night’s pre-Gamescom Microsoft press presentation was light on major announcements. But the event did include some details about how current Xbox One owners will be able to move their games and settings over to the new, 4K-capable Xbox One X when it launches on November 7. The easiest way to get all your games to the new system, as outlined by Microsoft Vice President Mike Ybarra , will be to just put them on an external USB hard drive and then plug that drive into the new console. “All your games are ready to play” immediately after this external hard drive move, he said, and user-specific settings can also be copied via external hard drive in the same way. If you don’t have an external drive handy, “we’re going to let you copy games and apps off your home network instead of having to manually move them or redownload them off the Internet,” Ybarra said. It’s unclear right now if Microsoft will mirror the PS4 Pro and allow this kind of system-to-system transfer directly using an Ethernet cable plugged directly in to both consoles. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft outlines the upgrade procedures for Xbox One X

Bitcoin Is Forking. Again.

Merely weeks after it was announced that Bitcoin was splitting into two separate entities, the initial version of bitcoin and it’s new “bitcoin cash, ” the network is adding a third version, according to a report. From the article: On Wednesday, a group of bitcoiners scheduled yet another split for the network in November, which would create a third version of bitcoin. So, what makes this version different from the others? Right now, the bitcoin network can sometimes take a long time to process transactions due to so many people using it. This is because the “blocks” of transaction data that get added to bitcoin’s public ledger, the blockchain, are getting full. In the weeks preceding the fork, bitcoin coalesced around a solution called “segregated witness, ” which will change how data is stored in blocks to free up some space when it kicks in later in August. But the size of the blocks themselves will stay at one megabyte on the original bitcoin blockchain. Still, some bitcoiners maintained that the only way to speed bitcoin up for the foreseeable future was to increase the size of blocks themselves. So, a group of bitcoin companies and developers got together and launched a fork called bitcoin cash, which does not include segregated witness. It bumped the size of blocks up to a maximum of eight megabytes. That fork was widely anticipated to be a failure before it happened, but at the time of writing, bitcoin cash is trading above $300 USD per coin, which is comparable to cryptocurrencies like ethereum. Sounds like everyone got what they wanted, right? Oh, no. There’s a third group of bitcoin developers, companies, and users who advocate for a “best of both worlds approach.” This group includes Bitmain, the largest bitcoin infrastructure company in the world, and legendary bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik. They got together back in May and signed what is known as the “New York Agreement, ” which bound them to implement a two megabyte block size increase alongside segregated witness via a hard fork within six months of the time of signing. They call the fork Segwit2x. Now, that’s exactly what’s happening. According to an announcement posted to the Segwit2x GitHub repository, a bitcoin block between one and two megabytes will be created at block 494, 784. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Russian Group That Hacked DNC Used NSA Attack Code In Attack On Hotels

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A Russian government-sponsored group accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee last year has likely been infecting other targets of interest with the help of a potent Windows exploit developed by, and later stolen from, the National Security Agency, researchers said Friday. Eternal Blue, as the exploit is code-named, is one of scores of advanced NSA attacks that have been released over the past year by a mysterious group calling itself the Shadow Brokers. It was published in April in the group’s most damaging release to date. Its ability to spread from computer to computer without any user action was the engine that allowed the WCry ransomware worm, which appropriated the leaked exploit, to shut down computers worldwide in May. Eternal Blue also played a role in the spread of NotPetya, a follow-on worm that caused major disruptions in June. Now, researchers at security firm FireEye say they’re moderately confident the Russian hacking group known as Fancy Bear, APT 28, and other names has also used Eternal Blue, this time in a campaign that targeted people of interest as they connected to hotel Wi-Fi networks. In July, the campaign started using Eternal Blue to spread from computer to computer inside various staff and guest networks, company researchers Lindsay Smith and Ben Read wrote in a blog post. While the researchers didn’t directly observe those attacks being used to infect guest computers connected to the network, they said a related campaign from last year used the control of hotel Wi-Fi services to obtain login credentials from guest devices. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Russian Group That Hacked DNC Used NSA Attack Code In Attack On Hotels

US Cyber Command may be splitting off from the NSA

It sounds as though the United States’ Cyber Command will break off from the National Security Agency and be more aligned with the military in the future. The move would “eventually” cleave Cyber Command from the intelligence-focused NSA and instead align it more with the military, according to the Associated Press . “The goal is to give Cyber Command more autonomy, freeing it from any constraints that stem from working alongside the NSA, ” AP reports. The NSA’s core task of intelligence gathering sometimes is at odds with military cyber warfare operations, hence the proposed separation. Prior to this, the two had clashed on getting intel from Islamic State networks (the NSA’s task) and attacking (Cyber Command’s). But there are concerns that splitting off from the NSA could come at a cost. Specifically, Cyber Command’s access to the intelligence agency’s resources including some of the top mathematicians in the country and a “gigantic” super computer, according to AP ‘s sources. The moves to start the separation had begun under President Obama, and now the nitty gritty of how the “divorce” (our word) will proceed is up in the air. The result of that is uncertainty over staffing, resources and leadership. Currently both groups are led by the same person, Admiral Mike Rogers , but the shift could see new leadership for the NSA transfer to a civilian. Cyber Command may remain under military leadership under the Army’s Lieutenant General William Mayville. Mayville served as director of operations for the Joint Staff. This comes after the Cyber Command has gained a bigger seat at the table during military operations and an increased focus on using cyber warfare in places like Russia and the Middle East. Source: Associated Press

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US Cyber Command may be splitting off from the NSA