Google has disrupted over 175,000 YouTube and Blogger instances related to the Chinese influence operation Dragonbridge.
The post Google Disrupts More China-Linked Dragonbridge Influence Operations appeared first on SecurityWeek.
A journalist merges family history with his own experience in Beijing to provide a fascinating insight into Chinese life and politics
It’s hard to think of a country that has changed as fundamentally as China without altering its basic political system. When I first visited Beijing, three weeks before the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, the main avenues of the city were rivers of bicycles. The very few cars you saw were official ones, with senior party figures sitting stiffly in the back. In the street, you’d be surrounded by staring, smiling people who had never seen a European before. When I jotted things in my notebook, they would crane their necks to see the strange, barbaric signs I was making. If you asked the students in Tiananmen Square what they wanted, they invariably said “democracy”; yet scarcely any of them had the slightest idea what that meant.
Deng Xiaoping, who ultimately gave the order to open fire on the demonstrators, was responsible for the extraordinary enrichment of ordinary Chinese people, eventually lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. It’s conventional to say that modern China is based on a compromise: we’ll make you rich, if you don’t ask for political change. But that makes it sound as though it’s an open choice. In fact, the Chinese Communist party decided after 1989 that even the slightest letup in its fierce control over society might lead to a new Tiananmen, or to the kind of collapse which happened to the Soviet Union. There’s very little ideology in today’s Chinese system, as anyone who has had to plough through the basic documents of “Xi Jinping Thought” can attest. It’s all about keeping control.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Mark Avery/AP
© Photograph: Mark Avery/AP
Global demand for renewable energy is surging so why make solar panels, wind turbines and EVs dearer for western consumers?
With historic heatwaves sweeping across the US and other parts of the northern hemisphere, June is expected to be the 13th consecutive month of record-breaking global temperatures. The primary cause, of course, is the enormous amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Despite the existential threat posed by rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, emissions continue to increase at a faster pace than previously anticipated.
On one front, however, progress in the fight against the climate crisis has exceeded expectations. Amid the global shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles and the accelerated adoption of solar and wind power, demand for renewable energy is rapidly rising in the US and the EU.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
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Enlarge / This photo taken on June 25, 2024, shows the retrieval site of the return capsule of the Chang'e-6 probe in Siziwang Banner, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (credit: Xinhua/Lian Zhen)
A small spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia on Tuesday, bringing samples from the far side of the Moon back to Earth.
This was not China's first robotic mission to return a few pounds of dust and pebbles from the lunar surface—that came with the Chang'e 5 mission in December 2020. However, this was the first time any space program in the world returned material from the Moon's far side.
The successful conclusion of this mission, which launched from Earth nearly two months ago, marked another significant achievement for China's space program as the country sets its sights on landing humans on the Moon by the year 2030.
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A suspected Chinese state-sponsored hacking group has stepped up its targeting of Taiwanese organizations, particularly those in sectors such as government, education, technology and diplomacy.
The post Chinese Hackers Have Stepped Up Attacks on Taiwanese Organizations, Cybersecurity Firm Says appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Last week I was reviewing a publication by the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime published in January 2024, titled "Casinos, Money Laundering, Underground Banking, and Transnational Organized Crime in East and Southeast Asia: A Hidden and Accelerating Threat."
(URL to the UNODC report: UNODC: Casinos, Money Laundering, Underground Banking ... full report)
(URL to the USIP report: https://www.usip.org/node/160386 )
The reason I was looking into the report is that this 106 page report is about how Chinese organized crime has planted themselves in Casino complexes across Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippine, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The same modus operandi that we associate with the crypto investment scams that use the horrible name "pig butchering" to describe the financial grooming that leads to the complete financial devastation of so many Americans. In fact, I discovered the UN report, only by seeing it quoted in he report by the United States Institute of Peace, "Transnational Crime in Southeast Asia: A Growing Threat to Global Peace and Security" where it was mentioned in a footnote.
The UNODC report shares statistics from a Ministry of Public Security of China note, without providing a URL, that "between January to November 2023, authorities in the country successfully resolved 391,000 cases related to telecommunications and network fraud, totaling the arrest of 79,000 suspects, including 263 'backbone members or paymasters' of cyberfraud groups" (in the countries mentioned above.) This included:
Since I am working on a project that we call "Twenty Targets for Takedown" that is attempting to shut own illicit websites by terminating their domain registrations and hosting arrangements, the number "8.36 million fraud-related domains" made me shudder.
I am fortunate to count among my network some of the leading experts in domain-name related fraud and abuse, the number seemed overwhelmingly high, and I asked my colleagues from CAUCE, the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, for assistance in looking into it. One quick opinion was that this could include a definition of domain name that would be more akin to a hostname, similar to what we have on Blogspot. "garwarner.blogspot.com" is a hostname on the domain "blogspot.com" ... but some would call it a "fully qualified domain name" and consider it a separate FQDN than other xyz.blogspot.com or abc.blogspot.com "domains."
John Levine helped me solve the "did they really mean millions, or is this possibly a bad translation" by helping me find the Ministry of Public Security site where the article was coming from and share several updated versions of these statistics.
The latest article we can find, dated 31MAY2024, quotes Li Guozhong ( 李国中 ) the Spokesman for China's Ministry of Pubic Security describing their successes over the past five years. In 2021, they established a National Anti-Fraud Center which sent out 660 million notices and were able to help stop fraud against 18.44 million people. This most recent article, which is focused on fraud and doesn't mention gambling at all, says that they have "handled 18 million domain names and websites." That's a machine translation of ( 处置涉案域名网址1800万个 ). I can confirm the 18 million ... written as 1800 ten thousands - 1800万个. Handled is perhaps better rendered "disposed of" 处置 (Chǔzhì). Still unsure how to interpret 域名 ( Yùmíng - Domain name) 网址 (Wǎngzhǐ - website), but I think for now, I'm going to assume it means "URLs" or "FQDNs" as opposed to only registered domains
Just since July 2023, 49,000 cyber fraud suspects have been transferred to China from northern Myanmar. 82,000 criminal suspect have been arrested, including 426 key "financial backers" behind the fraud groups.
China's Ministry of Public Security is actively conducting military style raids to help recover these fraud suspects from northern Myanmar, where China shares a long border with the country, which remains deeply embroiled in a state of civil war. MPS is also working collectively with other Southeast Asian countries and says it has "destroyed 37 overseas fraud dens."
Gee, doesn't that sound like REACT's Erin West and Operation Shamrock -- but with the full cooperation of the Government and Society?
The post Millions and Millions of Fraud Domains: China attacks Illegal Gambling and Telecom Fraud appeared first on Security Boulevard.
My poems were written in anger after Tiananmen Square. But what motivates most prison writing is a fear of forgetting. Today I am free, but the regime has never stopped its war on words. By Liao Yiwu
Continue reading...© Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA-EFE
© Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA-EFE
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© Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
Source: trendmicro.com[/caption] Source: trendmicro.com[/caption]
Winos grants remote access, keylogging, webcam control, microphone recording, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) capabilities. It also performs system reconnaissance like registry checks, file searches, and process injection. The malware connects to a command and control server to receive further modules/plugins that expand functionality.
Several of these external plugins were observed providing functions such as collecting saved passwords from programs like Chrome and QQ, deleting antivirus software and attaching themselves to startup folders.
Just have appropriate entertainment and satisfy your own lustful desires. Do not send it to the other party or harass the other party. Once you call the police, you will be in constant trouble! AI takes off clothes, you give me photos and I will make pictures for you. Do you want to see the female classmate you yearn for, the female colleague you have a crush on, the relatives and friends you eat and live with at home? Do you want to see them naked? Now you can realize your dream, you can see them naked and lustful for a pack of cigarette money.[caption id="attachment_77953" align="alignnone" width="437"]
Source: trendmicro.com[/caption]
Additionally, the threat actors have advertised AI technologies that could be used for virtual kidnapping, a novel deception campaign that leverages AI voice-alternating technology to pressure victims into paying ransom. The promotion of this technology for deepfake nudes and virtual kidnapping is the latest example of the danger of AI misuse.
Source: sygnia.co[/caption]
The attackers used known remote code execution flaws to install custom malware on the compromised F5 appliances. To obscure the execution chain, the attackers manipulated file-creation times and used three different files (‘iviewers.exe’, ‘iviewers.dll’ and ‘iviewers.dll.ui’) for deployment of the PlugX malware on affected systems. Once installed, PlugX harvested credentials and executed reconnaissance commands to map the internal network. The hackers then used the open-source tool Impacket for lateral movement across the network.
[caption id="attachment_77647" align="alignnone" width="1872"] Source: sygnia.co[/caption]
During the initial compromise, the threat actor compromised both modern workstations and legacy Windows Server 2003 systems. On modern endpoints, the hackers routinely tampered with the installed antivirus prior to deploying additional tools. This careful targeting of security controls demonstrates Velvet Ant’s operational maturity. However, the focus on legacy platforms ultimately assisted the hackers in evading detection.
The researchers identified the placement of 4 additional malware programs on compromised F5 appliances:
© Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Source: CUSCS Website[/caption]
According to the CUSCS, the leaked data included the names, email addresses, and student numbers of 20,870 Moodle accounts of tutors, students, graduates, and visitors. This personal data was reportedly stolen after a server at one of the institution’s schools was hacked.
Despite the university management stating that the sensitive data was not leaked on any public platforms, the breached information was found to be readily available on the dark web domain BreachForums.
A Threat Actor (TA), who goes by the alias “Valerie”, put up a post on dark web stating that the hacker was willing to sell the data. The TA noted that, “75 per cent of the stolen data was sold to a private party, which financed the breach. The rest of the data was not shared. So upon multiple offers, we decided to make a public sell.”
To claim that the data was credible, the TA provided samples, which included the username, first name, last name, institution, department, mobile number and city of the victims of the data breach.
The rise in U.S.-politics-themed scams indicates that adversarial nation states understand the significance of election years.
The post Chinese Threats Aim for Government Sector appeared first on Security Boulevard.
Enlarge / Brad Smith, vice chairman and president of Microsoft, is sworn in before testifying about Microsoft's cybersecurity work during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 13, 2024. (credit: SAUL LOEB / Contributor | AFP)
Microsoft is pivoting its company culture to make security a top priority, President Brad Smith testified to Congress on Thursday, promising that security will be "more important even than the company’s work on artificial intelligence."
Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, "has taken on the responsibility personally to serve as the senior executive with overall accountability for Microsoft’s security," Smith told Congress.
His testimony comes after Microsoft admitted that it could have taken steps to prevent two aggressive nation-state cyberattacks from China and Russia.
© Eric Lee/The New York Times
© Eric Lee/The New York Times
© Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
© Felix Schmitt for The New York Times
A Zambian court has sentenced 22 Chinese nationals to long prison terms for cybercrimes that included internet fraud and online scams targeting Zambians and other people.
The post 22 Chinese Nationals Sentenced to Long Prison Terms in Zambia for Multinational Cybercrimes appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Enlarge (credit: FT montage/Getty Images)
The resurrection of a car plant in Brazil’s poor northeast stands as a symbol of China’s global advance—and the West’s retreat.
BYD, the Shenzhen-based conglomerate, has taken over an old Ford factory in Camaçari, which was abandoned by the American automaker nearly a century after Henry Ford first set up operations in Brazil.
When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, visited China last year, he met BYD’s billionaire founder and chair, Wang Chuanfu. After that meeting, BYD picked the country for its first carmaking hub outside of Asia.
© Jason Henry for The New York Times
The US government has announced sanctions against three Chinese nationals accused of creating and operating the 911 S5 proxy botnet.
The post US Sanctions Three Chinese Men for Operating 911 S5 Botnet appeared first on SecurityWeek.
© Niki Chan Wylie for The New York Times
Kuo Chiu, known as KC to his friends, teaches urban design at Tunghai University in Taiwan. He’s also one of many of the country's citizens who practises rifle skills in his spare time, in case of a Chinese invasion.
The population of Taiwan has long grown familiar with Beijing’s pledge to one day ‘unify’ what it claims is a breakaway province. But recently, there has been a significant increase in aggressive and intimidatory acts.
Taiwan’s 160,000 active military personnel are vastly outnumbered by China’s 2 million-member armed forces, leading many civilians to turn to voluntary medical and combat training to protect themselves.
The Guardian's video team spent time with KC to see how he is preparing
Continue reading...© Photograph: The Guardian
© Photograph: The Guardian
© Craig Bailey/Florida Today, via Associated Press
© An Rong Xu for The New York Times
© Aly Song/Reuters
© Stephen Speranza for The New York Times
© Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
© Rozette Rago for The New York Times
© Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
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© Qilai Shen for The New York Times
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© Ting Shen for The New York Times
© Photo Illustration by The New York Times; Photo: Valerii Evlakhov, via Getty Images
© Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
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