[SecurityRatty] tag: forum

Censorship in Dubai

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:56:09 +0000

I was in Dubai last weekend for the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda. (I was on the "Future of the Internet" council; fellow council members Ethan Zuckerman and Jeff Jarvis have written about the event.)

As part of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai censors the Internet:

The government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) pervasively filters Web sites that contain pornography or relate to alcohol and drug use, gay and lesbian issues, or online dating or gambling. Web-based applications and religious and political sites are also filtered, though less extensively. Additionally, legal controls limit free expression and behavior, restricting political discourse and dissent online.

More detail here.

What was interesting to me about how reasonable the execution of the policy was. Unlike some countries -- China for example -- that simply block objectionable content, the UAE displays a screen indicating that the URL has been blocked and offers information about its appeals process.

Hackers Jailbreak T-Mobiles And Googles Android Phone

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:35:13 +0000

Hackers have managed to jailbreak T-Mobile’s new G1 phone by exploiting a gaping loophole in Android, the open source operating system supplied by Google. The hack, which was posted to XDA-Developers forum, is a straight-forward process that allows root access in about one minute. It involves using the widely available PTerminal application to telnet to the [...]

Global Forum highlights digital trust, international broadband competition

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:00:00 +0000

This year's Global Forum met in Athens last week, celebrating technological advance while noting chaotic policy-environment conditions.

The Lingua Franca of Information Security

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Working across the EMEA region and being employed by an American-headquartered company, I’m fortunate (and occasionally unfortunate!) to encounter the many cultural differences which unite and divide us. Today for example, I’m speaking at our EMC Forum in Moscow, earlier in the week I was in Sweden, and just last week I was with customers and colleagues in the somewhat sunnier climes of Dubai. It’s interesting then to note what changes, but perhaps more importantly the many more things that stay the same as you talk information security strategy throughout the region…...

McCain Campaign Rejects Jihadist's Web Endorsement

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:24:00 +0000

A jihadist on Monday posted a commentary on an Islamic extremist forum suggesting that al-Qaida should launch a terror attack against the United States before the election to help John McCain, who would continue the "failing march of his predecessor." The campaign argues that the jihadist was being insincere, and wants to keep McCain and running mate Sarah Palin out of the White House.

Real-Time OSINT vs Historical OSINT in Russia/Georgia Cyberattacks

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:58:59 +0000

The original real-time OSINT analysis of the Russian cyberattacks against Georgia conducted on the 11th of August, not only closed the Russia vs Georgia cyberwar case for me personally, but also, once again proved that real-time OSINT is invaluable compared to historical OSINT using a commercial social network visualization/data mining tool which cannot and will never be able to access the Dark Web, accessible only through real-time CYBERINT practices.

The value of real-time OSINT in such people's information warfare cyberattacks -- with Chinese hacktivists perfectly aware of the meaning of the phrase -- relies on the relatively lower operational security (OPSEC) the initiators of a particular campaign apply at the beginning, so that it would scale faster and attract more participants. What the Russian government was doing is fueling the (cyber) fire - literally, since all it takes for a collectivist socienty's cyber militia to organize, is a "call for action" which was taking place at the majority of forums, with the posters of these messages apparently using a spamming application to achieve better efficiency.

The results from 56 days of Project Grey Goose in action got published last week, a project I discussed back in August, point out to the bottom of the food chain in the entire campaign - stopgeorgia.ru :

"Furthermore, coming up with Social Network analysis of the cyberattacks would produce nothing more but a few fancy graphs of over enthusiastic Russian netizen's distributing the static list of the targets. The real conversations, as always, are happening in the "Dark Web" limiting the possibilities for open source intelligence using a data mining software. Things changed, OPSEC is slowly emerging as a concept among malicious parties, whenever some of the "calls for action" in the DDoS attacks were posted at mainstream forums, they were immediately removed so that they don't show up in such academic initiatives"

So what's the bottom line? Nothing that I haven't already pointed out back in August : "Report: Russian Hacker Forums Fueled Georgia Cyber Attacks" :

"But experts say evidence suggests that Russian officials did little to discourage the online assault, which was coordinated through a Russian online forum that appeared to have been prepped with target lists and details about Georgian Web site vulnerabilities well before the two countries engaged in a brief but deadly ground, sea and air war."

Some more comments :

"Just because there was no smoking gun doesn't mean there's no connection," said Jeff Carr, the principal investigator of Project Grey Goose, a group of around 15 computer security, technology and intelligence experts that investigated the August attacks against Georgia. "I can't imagine that this came together sporadically," he said. "I don't think that a disorganized group can coalesce in 24 hours with its own processes in place. That just doesn't make sense."

It wouldn't make sense if this was the first time Russian hacktivists are maintaining the same rhythm as real-life events - which of course isn't.

Moreover, exactly what would have constituted a "smoking gun" proving that the Russian government was involved in the campaign, remains unknown -- I'm still sticking to my comment regarding the web site defacement creative. If they truly wanted to compromise themselves, they would have cut Georgia off the Internet, at least from the perspective offered by this graph courtesy of the Packet Clearing House speaking for their dependability on Russian ISPs.

As for the script kiddies at stopgeorgia.ru, they were informed enough to feature my research into their "negative public comments section". To sum up - the "DoS battle stations operational in the name of the "Please, input your cause" mentality is always going to be there.

DHS Secretary Chertoff discusses cyber security, highlights supply chain security

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:00:00 +0000

I had not seen the Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, speak on cyber security issues at a public forum since he keynoted the industry-wide RSA Conference in April 2008, so I decided to attend a forum at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, October 15th where he was scheduled to keynote. Titled “Enhancing Cyber Security as Part of Enterprise Risk Management Planning” and held as part of a series of National Cyber Security Awareness Month events, Secretary Chertoff addressed the group of mostly business community attendees to highlight what he dubbed as “one of the most important initiatives that we have ever undertaken as a department or country”...

FBI Operated DarkMarket Carder Forum Sting Brings Worldwide Cybercriminals Arrests

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:39:39 +0000

For the last two years until its shutdown earlier this month DarkMarket.ws posed as a forum where identity thieves, credit card fraudsters, crackers and other ne’er do wells could hang out and exchange tips as well as trading hacker tools and stolen data. DarkMarket offered a place to flog stolen credit card information and identities, [...]

56 Arrested in DarkMarket Sting, Says FBI

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:20:00 +0000

The FBI acknowledges what Wired.com readers learned Monday: The internet's top English-speaking cybercrime forum was secretly run by the bureau for the last two years. The FBI says 56 people have been arrested around the world.

Google miffs admins, IT boosts Street

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Google annoyed administrators when it made changes to Google Apps "Start" portal pages without letting them know it was updating layout and functionality of those pages. Some administrators reported at a discussion forum that they were swamped with angry calls from end users who couldn't access Gmail accounts. On a slightly brighter note, Google reported solid quarterly earnings, as did IBM and Intel, but there's plenty of room for concern about the current quarter and coming quarters. Meanwhile, Mozilla continues work on its mobile browser, code-named Fennec, which was released in alpha this week for use on Nokia Internet tablets.