TrainACE - IT and Cybersecurity Training Blog

Both Silent Circle and Lavabit recently shut down their encrypted email services. Lavabit was the first to take action following word that the United States government wanted data handed over that would violate customers' privacy. Ladar Levison, owner of Lavabit, said he faced the decision of complying with the government and betraying the American people or ending the email service he worked hard to build. He also said that he was legally unable to explain the events leading up to his decision due to recent laws passed by congress blocking his freedom of speech.

Social networks are social by design. They mean to foster interaction, to put you in touch in one way or another. Some put you in touch with friends and family. Others put you out there for the whole wide world to see. Some uses are personal. Others are all business. In the end, though, social media platforms are all designed to be easy to access and easy to use. They’re intentionally informal. They’re the last place you’d expect to find classified intelligence or the kind of business secrets that companies diligently guard.

As cyber attacks increase in frequency and scandals involving governments hacking into private computers become more commonplace, it's no wonder that one of the most promising fields in the current IT sector would be cyber security. In fact, recent research has indicated that cyber security has grown by more than one hundred percent in the last year. Clearly, anyone seeking a job in the information technology area would do well to start at the first line of defense against hackers.

Criminals have been breaking into websites and electronic databases for many years. Although this can result in huge monetary losses, it rarely injures anyone or causes physical damage. However, hackers are gaining more destructive power as manufacturers add network interfaces and microprocessors to mechanical devices. This is a security threat that we cannot afford to ignore.

Researchers at security company FireEye have revealed an advanced persistent threat targeting the U.S. defense and aerospace industries and likely originating in China. Named Beebus after an early sample, the campaign's attacks come in continuous waves over time against strategically chosen individuals. According to an unnamed inside source, the Beebus campaign began in early 2012 when FireEye noticed suspicious activity on the systems of some its defense and aerospace clients. Of 261 discovered attacks, 123 targeted unmanned aerial vehicle or systems vendors. The most recent exploit used a Deloitte industry analysis report sent in a weaponized email. Researchers believe that the campaign has so far touched 214 servers with 60 unique IP addresses.

A huge portion of modern society uses some form of digital technology on a daily basis. Many conveniences on a national and personal level have been made possible due to this technology, but also opens up a Pandora's box of a whole new set of problems as well. The cyber battlefield grows more dangerous as organized hackers and other cyber threatening criminals set out to exploit the conveniences produced by the digital age for their own gain. There is an ongoing challenge, therefore, creating cyber security or defenses to protect the country from attacks; but have, on many occasions, been successfully breached to raise considerable concern even among the most savvy cyber security agencies in the world.

The term advanced persistent threat (APT) was originally used to describe complex, ongoing espionage perpetrated by foreign governments. However, today, APT typically refers to a category of cybercrime directed toward businesses or government entities. APTs are usually online attacks used to achieve goals beyond those that can be met by a single security breach, but some may involve malicious activity conducted onsite. Compromised computer systems are continuously monitored by the attackers or added to a stable of slave computers to be used to achieve some future goal. APTs are most often perpetrated by employing some form of malware, and IT technicians defend against APTs by installing antimalware software and hardware firewalls.