Iranian nation-state actors have been conducting password spray attacks against thousands of organizations globally between February and July 2023, new findings from Microsoft reveal. The tech giant, which is tracking the activity under the name Peach Sandstorm (formerly Holmium), said the adversary pursued organizations in the satellite, defense, and pharmaceutical sectors to likely facilitate intelligence…

The War Few Are Talking About

There is a growing war among nations and the potential victims may not even know they are targeted as pawns in a larger geopolitical game. This war is not being fought openly with the same territorial expansion objectives of conventional 20th-century warfare or with the threat of mutually assured annihilation from the Cold War. Rather,…

Hackers Tried to Cause Saudi Petrochemical Plant Blast: NYT

Cyber-attackers tried to trigger a deadly explosion at a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia in August and failed only because of a code glitch, The New York Times reported. Investigators declined to identify the suspected attackers, but people interviewed by the newspaper unanimously said that it most likely aimed to cause a blast that would have guaranteed…

The global cyber war is heating up: Why businesses should be worried

Last Friday, the Department of Justice indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies for interfering with the 2016 elections. Also last week, several countries including the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and Denmark accused Russia of being behind last summer’s NotPetya attack. “[NotPetya] was part of the Kremlin’s ongoing effort to destabilize Ukraine, and it demonstrates ever more clearly…

Industry reactions to Trump’s executive order on cybersecurity

On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed a long-awaited executive order on cybersecurity. Mainly, the order requires a number of cybersecurity reviews across the various agencies of the federal government, in order to determine what must be done to strengthen federal computer systems, as well as United States’ critical infrastructure. Here are some industry reactions to…

Trump Extends Obama’s EO for Sanctioning Hackers

President Donald J. Trump has quietly extended for one year the “national emergency” executive order issued by his predecessor Barack Obama that ultimately led to the sanctions and retaliatory measures taken by the Obama administration against Russian officials for that nation’s role in hacking activities targeting the US election. In a Federal Register Notice published…