Some expressed concern about a rise in hybrid attacks by Russia – including allegations of election interference, cyberattacks and sabotage.
The post The EU Targets Russia’s LNG Ghost Fleet With Sanctions as Concern Mounts About Hybrid Attacks appeared first on SecurityWeek.
President should rethink goal of reclaiming all lost territory, says Reform UK leader in latest remarks about war
Nigel Farage has urged Volodymyr Zelenskiy to seek a peace deal with Russia, “otherwise there will be no young men left in Ukraine”.
The Reform UK leader, who has been criticised for suggesting the west provoked Russian aggression against Ukraine, said it was time for the Ukrainian president to rethink his goal of reclaiming all territory lost to Vladimir Putin’s invasion, as such a mission was going to be “incredibly difficult”.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images
© Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images
WSJ reporter faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of spying charges US says are politically motivated
A Russian court has begun a closed-door trial of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges that he, his employer and the US government have all described as politically motivated.
Gershkovich appeared in a courtroom in Ekaterinburg on Wednesday, his head shaven by prison authorities, after being transferred from the Moscow jail where has been held since March 2023.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
© Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
The conversation between Lloyd Austin and Andrei Belousov was the first such call in over a year. What we know on day 854
The US and Russian defence chiefs spoke by telephone on Tuesday, in a rare conversation between the two powers and with tensions rising after Moscow blamed Washington for a deadly Ukraine attack over the weekend on the Russian-annexed Crimea. The two sides gave widely divergent accounts of the discussion – the first between US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and Russia’s defence minister Andrei Belousov.
Austin initiated the conversation and it was the first such call since March 2023, Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder told reporters. Russia’s defense ministry, however, said that Belousov warned Austin of the dangers of continued US arms supplies to Ukraine.
The international criminal court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russia’s former defence minister and its military chief of staff on Tuesday, for attacking civilian targets in Ukraine. The court is accusing Sergei Shoigu and leading Russian general Valery Gerasimov of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ukraine applauded the ICC’s issuing of the arrest warrants, saying it was “an important decision”. Shoigu and Gerasimov “bear individual responsibility … [They] will held be responsible for evil”, the presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.
Russia’s security council said the arrest warrants were part of a hybrid war against Moscow, the state-run Tass news agency reported. Shoigu is the security council’s secretary.
Ukrainian troops trying to hold their ground on the eastern front in Donetsk region may still be outnumbered by Russian forces but the “shell hunger” that plagued them for months as ammunitions started to run out is now behind them, Reuters reported.
An elderly woman was killed, four people injured and scores of buildings damaged in multiple air attacks by Ukraine on the southern Russian region of Belgorod, the governor said on Tuesday. Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence systems destroyed 29 Ukraine-launched drones over the region.
Russia and Ukraine each handed back 90 prisoners of war on Tuesday, in the latest of several periodic swaps in their conflict, with the United Arab Emirates overseeing the exchange as an intermediary. The last exchange took place on 31 May, when each side handed over 75 prisoners of war – the first exchange in nearly four months.
Russia said it was banning access inside Russia to the broadcasts of 81 different media outlets from the EU including Agence France-Presse and Politico in retaliation for a similar EU ban on several Russian media outlets. Moscow accused the outlets of “systematically distributing inaccurate information” about what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine. The EU said in May it was suspending the distribution of what it described as four “Kremlin-linked propaganda networks”.
Moscow expects to sign a new deal on comprehensive cooperation with Iran soon, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said. “We expect that this agreement will be signed in the very near future, since work on the text is already close to completion,” Russia’s state RIA news agency cited Andrei Rudenko as saying in an interview published on Tuesday. “All the necessary wording has been found.”
Continue reading...© Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
© Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
Source: Cyble[/caption]
The hackers use a technique called DLL sideloading, where a malicious library file masquerades as a legitimate one. This allows the attackers to run their code under the guise of trusted software. Additionally, they employ a tool called Shadowloader to inject the XWorm RAT into a running process, further obscuring its presence.
The XWorm RAT is then executed, offering a range of capabilities, including data theft, DDoS attacks, and cryptocurrency address manipulation. The malware attempts to connect to a Command-and-Control (C&C) server, but at the time of analysis, the server was inactive, resulting in no observed malicious activities.
[caption id="attachment_78919" align="alignnone" width="537"]
Source: Cyble[/caption]
While the initial infection vector remains unclear, researchers suspect phishing emails may play a role. The intended victim could not be ascertained from accessing the the Excel lure used in the campaign. CRIL researchers had previously observed the UAC-0184 threat actor group employing lures tailored to appeal to Ukrainian targets, often mimicking official government or utility communications.
The European Council has added six Russian hackers to the EU’s sanctions list for their cyberattacks against member states and Ukraine.
The post EU Sanctions Six Russian Hackers appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Army chief and ex-minister of defence accused over missile attacks on civilian targets including power plants
The international criminal court (ICC) at The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Russia’s ex-minister of defence and current army chief of staff for alleged war crimes in Ukraine after a missile campaign targeting Ukrainian power plants and other civilian infrastructure during the full-scale invasion.
Ex-minister of defence Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, Valery Gerasimov, are accused of the war crimes of directing attacks at civilian objects and of causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects. They are also accused of crimes against humanity.
Continue reading...© Photograph: AP
© Photograph: AP
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury[/caption]
The Treasury added all the above individuals to its Specially Designated Nationals list. SDN is a list maintained by OFAC that publicly identifies persons determined by the U.S. government to be involved in activities that threaten or undermine U.S. foreign policy or national security objectives.
Notably, the sanctions did not extend to Kaspersky Lab itself, its parent or subsidiary companies nor to its CEO Eugene Kaspersky.
The sanctions came just a day after the U.S. Commerce Department issued a final determination to ban Kaspersky Lab from operating in the United States. This ban is rooted in longstanding concerns over national security and the potential risks to critical infrastructure.
The Commerce Department also added three Kaspersky divisions to its entity list due to their cooperation with the Russian government in cyber intelligence activities.
The U.S. government has been wary of Kaspersky Lab's ties to the Russian government, fearing that its software could be used to facilitate cyber espionage.
Bloomberg in 2017 first reported it had seen emails between chief executive Eugene Kaspersky and senior Kaspersky staff outlining a secret cybersecurity project apparently requested by the Russian intelligence service FSB. Kaspersky refuted these claims, calling the allegations "false" and "inaccurate."
However, these concerns have led to a broader push to restrict the company's operations within the U.S. and to mitigate any potential threats to national security.
"Kaspersky provides industry-leading products and services to customers around the world to protect them from all types of cyber threats, and has repeatedly demonstrated its independence from any government." - Kaspersky LabThe antivirus company claimed it has also implemented significant transparency measures that demonstrate its commitment to integrity and trustworthiness. But "the Department of Commerce’s decision unfairly ignores the evidence," Kaspersky said. The company said it also proposed a system in which the security of Kaspersky products could have been independently verified by a trusted third party.
"Kaspersky believes that the Department of Commerce made its decision based on the present geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns, rather than on a comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of Kaspersky’s products and services."However, Brian Nelson, Treasury’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, stated, “Today’s action against the leadership of Kaspersky Lab underscores our commitment to ensure the integrity of our cyber domain and to protect our citizens against malicious cyber threats. The U.S. will take action where necessary to hold accountable those who would seek to facilitate or otherwise enable these activities.”
© via Oceanogràfic de Valencia
Source: SBU[/caption]
According to the SBU, the accounts hosted on this bot farm were also used to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda purporting as ordinary Ukrainian citizens.
Another 30-year-old man from Dnipro allegedly registered nearly 15,000 fake accounts on various social networks and messaging platforms using Ukrainian SIM cards. He sold these accounts to Russian intelligence services on darknet forums.
[caption id="attachment_77337" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
Source: SBU[/caption]
Both suspects face up to three years in prison or a fine if found guilty. The investigation continues.
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.
Items seized in Ukraine ransomware arrest[/caption]
The Ukraine cyber police said the man “specialized in the development of cryptors,” or “special software for masking computer viruses under the guise of safe files” (quotes translated from the Ukraine statement).
“Thanks to his programming skills, the person involved was able to hide malicious software from the most popular antiviruses,” the Ukraine statement added.
Enlarge / In this pool photo distributed by Sputnik agency, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un visit the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Amur region in 2023. An RD-191 engine is visible in the background. (credit: Vladimir Smirnov/Pool/AFP/Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin will reportedly visit North Korea later this month, and you can bet collaboration on missiles and space programs will be on the agenda.
The bilateral summit in Pyongyang will follow a mysterious North Korean rocket launch on May 27, which ended in a fireball over the Yellow Sea. The fact that this launch fell short of orbit is not unusual—two of the country's three previous satellite launch attempts failed. But North Korea's official state news agency dropped some big news in the last paragraph of its report on the May 27 launch.
The Korean Central News Agency called the launch vehicle a "new-type satellite carrier rocket" and attributed the likely cause of the failure to "the reliability of operation of the newly developed liquid oxygen + petroleum engine" on the first stage booster. A small North Korean military spy satellite was destroyed. The fiery demise of the North Korean rocket was captured in a video recorded by the Japanese news broadcaster NHK.
Spy warez: Assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division Bryan Vorndran (pictured) might have the key to unscramble your files.
The post LockBit Victim? Ask FBI for Your Ransomware Key appeared first on Security Boulevard.
Google and Microsoft warn of elevated risks of cyber threats facing the 2024 Paris Olympics, especially from Russian threat actors.
The post Google, Microsoft: Russian Threat Actors Pose High Risk to 2024 Paris Olympics appeared first on SecurityWeek.
Enlarge / A visual from the fake documentary Olympics Has Fallen produced by Russia-affiliated influence actor Storm-1679. (credit: Microsoft)
Last year, a feature-length documentary purportedly produced by Netflix began circulating on Telegram. Titled “Olympics have Fallen” and narrated by a voice with a striking similarity to that of actor Tom Cruise, it sharply criticized the leadership of the International Olympic Committee. The slickly produced film, claiming five-star reviews from The New York Times, Washington Post, and BBC, was quickly amplified on social media. Among those seemingly endorsing the documentary were celebrities on the platform Cameo.
A recently published report by Microsoft (PDF) said the film was not a documentary, had received no such reviews, and that the narrator's voice was an AI-produced deep fake of Cruise. It also said the endorsements on Cameo were faked. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Report went on to say that the fraudulent documentary and endorsements were only one of many elaborate hoaxes created by agents of the Russian government in a yearlong influence operation intended to discredit the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and deter participation and attendance at the Paris Olympics starting next month.
Other examples of the Kremlin’s ongoing influence operation include:
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, revealed the tactics and traits that help him face the daily frustrations of leading a country at war for more than two years.
Within a ceremonial room inside Kyiv’s presidential compound, Zelenskiy spoke for nearly an hour with a Guardian team, including the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. The interview took place during perhaps the toughest time for Ukraine since the early days of the war. Russia is on the offensive in Kharkiv, an advance that follows months of delay in the US Congress over the passing of a major support package, limiting Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities
Continue reading...© Photograph: The Guardian
© Photograph: The Guardian
Russian threat groups are using old tactics and generative AI to run malicious disinformation campaigns meant to discredit the Paris Olympic Games, France and its president, and the IOC -- less than two months before the Games begin.
The post Russian Threat Groups Turn Eyes to the Paris Olympic Games appeared first on Security Boulevard.
© Misha Friedman/Getty Images
© Jason Henry for The New York Times
© Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press
© Sasha Maslov for The New York Times
© Sasha Maslov for The New York Times
© Craig Bailey/Florida Today, via Associated Press
© Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Login
