CyberWire Daily

Disinformation about a radiation leak that wasn’t. Another warning about Trickbot. The FBI says cybercrime cost victims more than $4.2 billion last year. Investigation and remediation of the SolarWinds and Exchange Server compromises continue. Crypters become a commodity for malware developers. Robert M. Lee from Dragos on lessons from the recent Texas power outages. Our guest is Bob Shaker from Norton Lifelock looking at baddies targeting online gamers. And some people are looking for jobs in all the wrong places.For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news brief:https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/52 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The US Intelligence Community has released its report on 2020 foreign election meddling. It found no successful hacking, but a lot of clever influence operations. Ukraine says it stopped a significant Russian cyberespionage campaign. Recovery from the SolarWinds and Exchange Server compromises continues. Joe Carrigan shares thoughts on the Verkada hack. Our guest is Oscar Pedroso from Thimble on getting kids hooked on technology. And no, that celebrity tweeter isn’t really going to send you $2000 for every $1000 you give back to the community.For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news brief:https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/51 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

McAfee describes Operation Diànxùn, a probable Chinese collection effort directed against telecoms and 5G technology. Organizations around the world continue to work to thwart exploitation of Exchange Server vulnerabilities. What’s a webshell, and what can it do? Ben Yelin looks at cell phone data gathered from the US Capitol riot. Our guest is Ross Rustici from ZeroFOX on the evolution of ransomware. And how much does it cost to redirect all your SMS messages to some goon? Said goon needs only sixteen bucks.For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news brief:https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/50 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Microsoft is looking for a possible leak behind the spread of Exchange Server exploits, and hackers piggyback on webshells placed by other threat actors. The US Government continues to mull how to respond to Holiday Bear and Hafnium. Britain’s PM calls for greater offensive cyber capabilities. India looks for ways of countering China in cyberspace. Sky Global executives indicted for alleged racketeering. Accenture’s Josh Ray takes on defending against nation states. Rick Howard aims the hash table at third party cloud security. And what does it cost to be on a do-not-call list? Nothing. Really.For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news brief:https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/49 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The SolarWinds Orion SUNBURST exploit forced organizations to determine whether and to what extent they’d been compromised. It’s not enough to eject the intruders and their malware from the networks. Affected organizations also need to know what systems and data had been breached, and for how long. The adversary behind SUNBURST is advanced, quietly breaching the perimeter and moving freely to access, steal, or destroy business-critical data, and to disrupt operations.Joining us to share their expertise on the subject are Ryan Olson of Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42, Bill Yurek of Inspired Hacking Solutions, and we close out the show with Matt Cauthorn, from our sponsor ExtraHop, who joins CyberWire-X to discuss the challenges of detecting such advanced threats, and to share insights from behavioral analysis on what the new breed of threat actor is doing inside our networks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coming from her love of math, VP of R&D at Arctic Wolf Networks Dinah Davis shares how she arrived in the cybersecurity industry after finding her niche. Dinah recalls how at a time of indecision, a computer course at university and a job with the Canadian government helped to solidify her career direction. Dinah mentions how "security and cryptography specifically was this perfect mix of real world problem solving and mathematics and computer science all combined into one ball of happiness." Networking played a key role in Dinah's journey. She recommends that those interested in joining the field to go for what they believe in. And, we thank Dinah for sharing her story with us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guest Dr. Rosario Cammarota from Intel Labs joins us to discuss confidential computing. Confidential computing provides a secure platform for multiple parties to combine, analyze and learn from sensitive data without exposing their data or machine learning algorithms to the other party. This technique goes by several names — multiparty computing, federated learning and privacy-preserving analytics, among them. Confidential computing can enable this type of collaboration while preserving privacy and regulatory compliance.The research and supporting documents can be found here: Intel Labs Day 2020: Confidential Computing Confidential Computing Presentation Slides Demo video Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Microsoft warns that ransomware operators are exploiting vulnerable Exchange Servers. Threat actors continue to look for unpatched instances of Exchange Server. Johannes Ullrich joins us with his thoughts on the incident. REvil ransomware hits a range of fresh targets. Concerns are raised about the effects of the SolarWinds compromise on embedded devices. Our guest is Sally Carson from Cisco making the case that good design can save cybersecurity. And an unspecified cyber incident shuts down Coors Molson.For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news brief:https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/48 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Norway’s parliament is hit with Exchange Server exploitation. CISA and the FBI issue more advice on how to clean up an Exchange Server compromise. CISA hints at more detailed attribution of the SolarWinds compromise “soon,” and US Cyber Command says military networks were successfully defended. Microsoft’s Kevin Magee of exporting cyber talent. Our guest is Hanan Hibshi from Carnegie Mellon University on their picoCTF online hacking competition. Notes on some evolving criminal techniques, an update on the security camera hacktivist incident, and some news you won’t need, but your friends might.For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news brief:https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/47 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Patch Tuesday was a big one this month. Microsoft Exchange Server remains under active attack in the wild, with new threat actors hopping on the opportunity. Russia denies it had anything to do with the SolarWinds incident and says the kinds of US response that the word on the street tells them are under consideration would be nothing more than international crime. Hacktivists strike a blow against cameras and stuff. Joe Carrigan has thoughts on Google’s plans for third party cookies. Our guest is Kelvin Coleman from the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) on how educators can better protect students’ privacy during distance learning sessions. And police in the low countries sweep up more than a hundred cybercrooks.For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news brief:https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/46 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices