Daily Archives: October 24, 2020

The National Security Agency (NSA) issued a Cybersecurity Advisory on October 20, 2020, entitled Chinese State-Sponsored Actors Exploit Publicly Known Vulnerabilities, alerting IT professionals to 25 vulnerabilities that Chinese state-sponsored hackers are using against U.S. businesses that can be exploited to gain initial access to victim networks using products that are directly accessible from the internet and act as gateways to internal networks. The Advisory is designed to share information with security professionals to urge them to update systems to protect against the attacks.

According to the notice, [W]e hope that by highlighting the vulnerabilities that China is actively using to compromise systems, cybersecurity professionals will gain actionable information to prioritize efforts and secure their systems.

The 25 vulnerabilities can be accessed here:

The Advisory further provides general mitigation steps that companies can employ:

The vulnerabilities are listed in detail in the Advisory and companies may wish to confirm that all of the vulnerabilities listed have been patched on their systems.

[View source.]

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NSA Issues List of Vulnerabilities Used by Chinese Backed Hackers - JD Supra

LONDONHenry Kissinger once tried to come between the National Security Agency (NSA) and Britains GCHQ, their signals intelligence (SIGINT) brothers from the other side of the pond, and the response from the U.S. intelligence agency was short and swift.

The NSA simply said, Drop dead, says the author of a new authorized history of GCHQ, who explains that the two intelligence agencies have a closer relationship with each other than they do with their own governments.

The worlds two leading signals intelligence agencies are so tightly bound together that they share virtually all of the material they gather with no questions asked. Over the years, GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) has frequently protected the NSA from rivals within the U.S. including the CIA and Naval intelligence unitsand even their respective presidents and prime ministers come second in the hierarchy of loyalty, according to Behind the Enigma: The Authorized History of GCHQ, Britains Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency by John Ferris.

I say in the bookand both GCHQ and NSA allowed me to say itthat at some point or another, every director of GCHQ and NSA colludes with each other in order to do something which their own national authority might try to impede, Ferris told The Daily Beast.

One such clash arose in 1973 when Kissinger, who was President Nixons national security adviser at the time, ordered the NSA to stop sharing signals intelligence with Britain in order to pressure London to support Nixons Israel policy.

The NSA refused to comply, challenging Kissingers authority despite his key role at the White House. Ironically, under the shared intelligence agreement between the agencies, Kissingers move would have left the U.S. flying blind in the Middle East because collecting signals intelligence in the region was entirely the domain of the British who funnelled the intel back to Fort Meade.

One of the most bizarre aspects of this unparalleled intelligence sharing partnership is that it is not enshrined in any treaty; its a subnational, totally non-binding agreement, which makes the NSAs willingness to stand up to Kissinger even more extraordinary.

If Jeremy Corbyn had been elected with a majority, I think he would have broken it and he could have done so. And if Donald Trump wanted to break it, he could do so. Any British prime minister or American president is free to choose. The problem is theyre so closely intertwined that it would cause massive immediate problems, or huge amounts of expenditure to overcome. That wouldnt have bothered Corbyn, said Ferris.

The relationship was also entirely secret for 25 years after World War II. It wasnt until 2010 that the documents behind the agreement were put into the public domain. This comprehensive book uses unprecedented access to GCHQ files to chart the full history of the agreement, which is called UKUSA (pronounced yoo-kusa, a bit like the Japanese mafia, by those in the know).

The only organization I can think of which in any way comes close is NORAD, the North American air defense system where the Canadian and American air defense systems are integrated. But thats much more narrow and specific than UKUSA, but thats the only other thing that comes close. So, yes, this is really unique, said Ferris, who is a professor of history at the University of Calgary in Canada.

At the end of the Cold War, during which British expertise on intercepting Russian communications had been instrumental, there was a fear that GCHQs influence would wane, but the agency, which is based in Cheltenham, southwest England, bucked expectations and repositioned itself as a trailblazer in modern signals intelligence.

With the resources freed from exhaustively covering the Soviet Union, GCHQ was able to start doing what its really good at, which is exploring new territoriesin this case, the early days of the internet, mapping it out for themselves and the Americans and then coming up with new methods of interception and cryptography to suit the new environment.

British paymasters recognized the outsized diplomatic clout they maintained in Fort Meade and in Washington, where GCHQ intel product remains highly respected, so long as the intelligence agency was allowed to thrive, and so investment in the agency remained relatively high despite the end of the Cold War.

Ferris was not allowed to detail current intel methods in the book for obvious reasons, but the documents published by Edward Snowden, who was employed by a contractor to work at an NSA facility, give an unmistakable insight into the current balance of the relationship between GCHQ and the NSA.

If Im judging simply by material which has been leaked, mostly by Snowden in the past five or six years, my sense is that the British are relatively much more significant than they were at any point since the 1960s, said Ferris. If you go through the Snowden material, youll find that a huge number of the technical innovations clearly are British, and, in fact, the Americans pay GCHQ to develop them.

The book argues that regular NSA efforts to subsidize GCHQ, which has a much smaller budget and staff, is a sign not of GCHQs weakness but of its strength. The British SIGINTers are seen as valuable scouts and innovators who routinely deliver a good return on investment. As the former director of GCHQ, David Omand, once joked, We have the brains. They have the money.

This is not to say, the NSA is not filled with brilliant people in itself, and their capacity for intelligence gathering is unparalleled. The Americans have this raw power, which once focused is overwhelming, said Ferris. I would personally say that NSA is one of the most technologically disruptive organizations in history. So, the two of them together are very formidable.

The relationship between the American and British signals intelligence communities blossomed during World War II, when U.S. pioneers were invited over to Bletchley Park, the legendary home of the codebreakers who cracked Germanys secret wartime communications.

Genuinely, they were astounded by the quality of every branch of British SIGINT and, in fact, came to understand that what the British were doing was very ahead of us in every single way, said Ferris.

NSA could trust GCHQ to have its back in a way that it cannot trust any other American agency to have its back.

John Ferris

Anglo-American relations were complicated during the course of the war, with Washington initially reluctant to become embroiled in another predominantly European conflict. After the war, American SIGINTers, with the help of GCHQ input, succeeded in convincing President Harry Truman that a large-scale peacetime SIGINT operation was necessary to ensure there was never a Nuclear Pearl Harbor.

UKUSA was established in 1946, linking American and British SIGINT efforts ever since. The agreement also took in Britains recent Dominions; Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Together they formed a global network which is now known as Five Eyes.

The relative merits of NSA and GCHQ have fluctuated over the decades. In the 50s and even early 60s, GCHQ was still seen as the more impressive intelligence producer. American internal memos bemoaned the supremacy of GCHQs final product, which was often deemed better written and more fully analysed.

In the latter decades of the 20th century, big American investments in supercomputing and expensive advances, including satellite technology, ensured NSA was in the ascendancy.

The agreement was founded on individual personal relationships between SIGINTers, and sometimes those were rocky. There were complaints that GCHQ was hogging the most prestigious roles; British assessments of American product were sometimes deemed too rude to share; and in the mid-80s NSA Director William Odom complained that GCHQ did not carry out its share of the work given how much authority it demanded.

The British clearly cant accept happily their own loss of pre-eminence in this business, Odom wrote in his remarkably frank diary. Socially I no longer find the British amusing, merely a pain in the ass.

But throughout it all, NSA and GCHQ, two largely civilian organizations, maintained their togetherness. All of the Five Eyes countries would send senior liaison officers and up-and-coming integrees to work at the other agencies, sharing intel techniques and honing each others skills. A no-poach policy ensures that the agencies are willing to let their best and their brightest take part in the exchanges. In Behind the Enigma, Ferris writes:

In one legendary moment, an American integree at Cheltenham and a British one at Fort Meade conducted negotiations between GCHQ and NSA on behalf of their adopted services; in another, every member of a Sigint conference between Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States held a British passport.

GCHQ is also part of American decision-making. There are lots of interagency meetings and important issues where GCHQ representatives are part of the decision-making process right on U.S. soil. On Sept. 12, 2001, the head of GCHQ was on the only aircraft allowed into the United States immediately after 9/11. General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA, has since said it was decided in the aftermath that GCHQ would assume command of all American SIGINT if Fort Meade was compromised.

NSA could trust GCHQ to have its back in a way that it cannot trust any other American agency to have its back. And GCHQ and NSA provide each other with state secrets, which only a handful of other people would see. It is one of the most unusual arrangements Ive ever seen, Ferris said.

If the agreement does eventually collapse it will cost the U.S. billions of dollars to replace the input from Britain.

General Hayden, who was director of both the NSA and CIA, was an exception, but there has often been a rivalry between the two agencies which dates back to the 1950s when NSA was created: CIA operatives around the world had previously been responsible for foreign SIGINT collection.

There was a huge amount of blood on the floor, said Ferris, and relations were often tough over the decades to come. There are moments when CIAfor good reasons or badis not doing what NSA would like. And GCHQ helps NSA avoid some of those problems. GCHQ has perfectly civil relations with CIA. So, its actually easier for GCHQ to get CIA to help NSA than it is for NSA to get CIA to help NSA.

Many SIGINTers believe UKUSA will eventually fall apart now that the unifying threat of the Cold War has faded away and there is no guarantee that new generations of political leaders will share common foreign policy goals. The strength of the agreement was tested in the Middle East in the 70s when British and American governments disagreed over Israel, and similarly two decades before when Washington did not support British policy during the 1956 Suez crisis. On that occasion GCHQ actually hampered British government policy by refusing to cooperate with French intelligence.

If the agreement does eventually collapse it will cost the U.S. billions of dollarsFerris believes the NSA budget would have to increase by around a thirdto replace the input from Britain. But even more than that, one of the greatest intelligence-gathering partnerships the world has ever seen would be permanently damaged.

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Why the NSA Told Henry Kissinger to Drop Dead When He Tried to Cut Intel Links with Britain - The Daily Beast

We live in a world of a beehive of online activities, with many individuals happily sharing their private information on the Internet. Unfortunately, Uncle Sam is constantly looking over your shoulder. Unknown to most people, a lot of data is collected via the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) PRISM surveillance program. Once youre the target, a massive amount of data about you can be collected and forwarded to the government. Whenever the government is caught with its hands in the privacy jar, two platitudes are always given: If you have not done something wrong, youve nothing to hide, and you have to trust the government it has your best interests at heart.

Basically, the governments nothing-to-hide notion implies that its only criminals who may want to hide. But is that true? Besides, we all have something that we want to hide. Just ask anybody to show you their credit card bill or even their emails what would be the response?

If theres nothing that should be hidden and you can trust the government with your data, think about this scenario: What will happen if someone gains access into the governments database? Since you are here, we assume you are one of those folks who want to escape NSA spying. If so, it is time for you to be smart and be a ghost!

Online activities should be private, but unfortunately, thats not the case. In 2013, the NSA outlined how data can be collected via the PRISM program. The technology is merely based on the optical fiber wiretaps. PRISM is meant to track the activities of potential foreign terrorists. Just like in criminal investigations, the NSA is probably not intentionally spying on you, but the fact that they can when they want to is a breach of privacy.

There are several ways you stay out of the omnipresent eyes of the government and the NSAs PRISM. Below are some simple measures to minimize the likelihood of the NSA PRISM program monitoring your Internet activities.

One of the surest ways of beating the NSAs PRISM surveillance trap is by encrypting your Internet traffic. Its simply that all the encrypted data is useless to the PRISM program without the decryption key. Your conversations may not be private unless you encrypt. First, you can encrypt the hard drive and all the existing files. All the data stored on the cloud should be encrypted before being submitted to Internet service providers. The last thing you want is entirely trusting Google, Microsoft, or Apple to encrypt data for you. As an individual, avoid storing unencrypted personal data in clouds like OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive.

Using a good VPN will help keep the NSA from sniffing around your personal space and your business. A VPN merely helps establish a private network thats private to the Internet and allows you to surf anonymously (although there are many caveats here). It conceals the user identity by masking the devices IP address and then directing traffic via VPN servers in a location that you may choose.

However, a VPN should not be just a VPN but should be a VPN that doesnt keep logs. A VPN without logs means that the VPN provider cannot reveal your identity even if it gets a court order. Thats because it wont be recording any of your web activities details in the first place. Moreover, a VPN will ensure that you easily bypass Internet restrictions, as well as getting access to blocked websites.

Each time you visit a new site, a trail of footprints are left behind that can tell so much about you. Most advertising networks use those digital footprints for targeted ads, meaning that the NSA is most probably watching every keystroke you make.

Therefore, to ensure that you block web tracking, simply visit your browsers settings and then disable third-party cookies so that they do not load on the current web page.

Secondly, you need to privately search the web by activating private incognito mode in the browser. Alternatively, you can opt to use browser extensions like Ghostery that prevent ad agencies and search engines from tracking web pages.

Furthermore, you can disable JavaScript from the browser setting to help avoid web tracking. And masking your IP address via a VPN is another excellent way of staying out of the radar of tracking cookies.

Sometimes connecting to free hotspots can prove to be a channel through which someone can access your device. However, wandering from the library to the coffee shop and the free caf down the street can provide a security protection layer. Why? Because your IP address keeps on varying by location. However, you should be very careful about such hotspots as they are the real hotspots of malware invasion.

After doing everything right, youll also want to tie all your encrypted services with hard-to-crack passwords. You need to find the best password manager and then create your unique password.

The NSA can tap into all cellular networks across the globe. Therefore, theres every reason to protect your communications. Your instant messaging services can be protected from the NSA surveillance program using an Off-the-Record (OTR) chat extension. It helps in encrypting all messages on IM networks.

Another reigning king for anonymous browsing is the Onion Router (TOR). It allows you to browse anonymously as it conceals user identity by encrypting and bouncing communications over a plethora of servers. Therefore, it makes it difficult for spy agencies to trace the traffic source or the recipient easily. All they see is traffic originating from a plethora of random nodes and not your PC.

Ultimately, keeping off the NSAs PRISM is not a walk in the park. While all these tips do not mean that youre entirely PRISM-proof, theyll minimize the risk of NSA snooping on your online activities. You just have to pray that you dont give them enough evidence to suspect you because then all privacy bets are off.

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FAIR HILL, Md., Oct. 22, 2020With COVID-19 eliminating, or severely limiting, live spectators at fall steeplechase races from Pennsylvania to Georgia, race organizers were struggling with decisions on whether or not to continue with their race plans. Since the pandemic, and with events not allowed to have spectators in much of the U.S., there has been a large decrease in equestrian events. Many of those employed in the industry face potential unemployment and financial hardship. Additionally, many non-profits usually receive funding and increased awareness through relationships with steeplechase race meets.

In an effort to help alleviate the hardship on the industry and their partners, the National Steeplechase Association has stepped up and is livestreaming several fall race meets. These efforts by NSA allow the horses to race, while spectators enjoy the sport from their homes, and associated non-profits including land conservation organizations, community hospitals and food banks continue to have a spotlight on their great work.

Over the past years, steeplechase events have contributed millions to community nonprofits. We wanted to provide a venue for the steeplechase/racing industry to be able to get horses out and receive some financial support in the form of purse money while continuing to create exposure for non-profit beneficiaries, explained Dr. William Allison, co-chairman of the Virginia Gold Cup Association, the organization that oversees the Virginia Gold Cup and the International Gold Cup. Thanks to the NSA, horsemen have been able to continue training their equine athletes and fans can still enjoy the racing through Live Stream viewing.

Race fans and equestrian enthusiasts can easily Jump into Fall! and view the Live Stream at http://nsa.network.video/ on the following dates:

Race day start times generally kick off at 12:30 pm; final start times will be posted on the NSA website 48 hours before each race meet. Expert commentary will be provided by industry insiders Megan Connolly and Joe Clancy, with guest appearances from other sporting notables.

Unlike flat track racing, steeplechase racing provides the thrills and excitement of Thoroughbred horses racing over fences. By most accounts, the first steeplechase race was held in 1752 in Ireland. Todays sport is a true celebration of the long and close relationship between man and the horse. Riders depend on the athleticism, strength, speed and sure-footedness of their horses to carry them safely over varied fences.

While COVID restrictions have made race meets challenging this year, we hope to be able to bring in new spectators who may want to see and learn about steeplechase racing, said Al Griffin, president of the NSA. Its an exciting sport that relies on a partnership between riders and horsesnot something you see with other sports. The live stream provides an opportunity for the public to see what its all about, free of charge.

This year, the Live Stream will capture that excitement as well as gorgeous fall scenery in some of the countrys most beautiful equestrian regions. The complimentary Live Stream productions have been sponsored by Brown Advisory, Charlestons The Post & Courier, Bruton Street-US and the Virginia Equine Alliance.

Press Release/Photo National Steeplechase Association

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Jump into Fall! with the National Steeplechase Association - Past The Wire

Twitter criticized by regulator, NSA ranks vulnerabilities, cybercrooks pretend to be good guys and more.

Welcome to Cyber Security Today. Its Wednesday October 21st. Im Howard Solomon, contributing reporter on cybersecurity for ITWorldCanada.com. To hear the podcast click on the arrow below:

Remember the big Twitter hack last July? Thats when attackers took over the accounts of celebrities and promoted a double your bitcoin scam. Well, New York States financial regulator has criticized Twitter for poor security in letting the attackers get away with it. There were no special tricks used by the attackers, the report said. A few employees fell for a phone call from someone pretending to be from Twitters IT department, and that led to the infiltration. Just as bad, Twitter didnt have a chief information security officer for seven months before the hack. That sends a message cybersecurity wasnt a top priority, the report said.

Ive often talked of the importance of having two-factor authentication to strengthen employee logins. Well, Twitter had it. But hackers got around that by tricking staff into logging into lookalike company sites. Then when they added their two-factor codes, the hackers copied them. The lesson here is some staff who can access sensitive things should use a special USB key for their two-factor codes for better protection instead of numbers.

Its not easy for IT departments to prioritize which software patches that they should install. Updates are issued almost daily from companies around the world. The U.S. National Security Agency wants to help. On Tuesday it issued a list of the 25 most commonly used vulnerabilities exploited by Chinese state-sponsored cyber attackers. Most either exploit holes allowing hackers to remotely get into computer networks, or to attack web services. The list includes holes in products from Pulse Secure, F5 Networks, Citrix, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, Cisco Systems and others. The NSA says U.S. government systems and companies that sell to the Defence department should see this list as a priority. Other companies should, too. Theres a link to the list here.

Everybody wants to be a Good Guy, including cybercriminals. After bad publicity two years ago, some ransomware gangs swore they dont target hospitals, only evil capitalist companies. Last week one went further, saying it has started donating some of the money it has forced victims to pay to two charities. Lets make the world a better place, the Darkside gang apparently said on its website. Well, one of the charities that got the equivalent of $10,000 in bitcoin, a non-profit for sponsoring children in extreme poverty, isnt fooled. If the donation comes from a hacker, it told the BBC, we wont keep it. As the ZDNet news service pointed out, its illegal in most countries to receive funds obtained by crime.

This being Cyber Security Awareness Month its a good time to think about whether the cyber training offered at work and in schools is worthwhile. So a management consulting firm called Oliver Wyman created a scoring system to rate countries cyber risk literacy. Its based on public motivation to practice good cybersecurity, government policies to improve cyber literacy, education systems, how well businesses raise employees cyber skills and the degree to which digital access and skills are shared across the population. The best country is Switzerland, followed closely by Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands. Canada ranks sixth, the U.S., 10th. South Africa is last out of 50 countries rated, just after China.

Finally, theres a report that a ransomware group called Nefilim has begun publishing stolen data that appears to come from Luxottica, a company that makes eyeglass frames like RayBan and owns a number of eyeglass retailers around the world like LensCrafters. According to Security Affairs, an Italian researcher discovered the documents, which are said to be corporate financial files. Nefilim is one of the ransomware groups that steals and encrypts data, and threatens to publicly release the files unless victim organizations pay up.

Thats it for Cyber Security Today. Links to details about these stories can be found in the text version of each podcast at ITWorldCanada.com. Thats where youll also find my news stories aimed at businesses and cybersecurity professionals. Cyber Security Today can be heard on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or add us to your Flash Briefing on your smart speaker.

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Cyber Security Today Twitter criticized by regulator, NSA ranks vulnerabilities, cybercrooks pretend to be good guys, and more - IT World Canada

THE National Sheep Association (NSA) was very disappointed to cancel its sheep events this summer, but is now proceeding with plans for its line-up of spring and summer events for 2021.

The NSA 2021 diary is already looking full with the main regional events NSA Welsh Sheep, NSA Scotsheep, NSA North Sheep, NSA Sheep South West and NSA Sheep Northern Ireland all set to take place between May and July, offering visitors a much-needed day out meeting with fellow sheep farmers and industry experts. Bookings for events will now open very soon.

NSA chief executive Phil Stocker said: Of course, we were left with no choice but to cancel our 2020 events. Now, despite some uncertainty about the situation we will find ourselves in next year, we must proceed with optimism that our line-up of events will be able to take place once again next year.

As an organisation that acts as the voice of the UKs sheep sector, a sector likely to be considerably affected in 2021 by our imminent departure from Europe, there will never be a more important time for us to be able to meet with members and colleagues face-to-face to discuss the changes upon us and the steps needed for our industry to move forward into a new era for the countrys farmers.

"We sincerely hope that the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic will have subsided sufficiently to allow this to happen.

NSA is formed of nine regions that each has involvement with or organises its own regional sheep event for members in that area. As business to business events, NSA Sheep Events offer visitors opportunity to hear from industry leaders in informative seminars, take part in practical workshops, discuss an array of products both new and existing with sheep farming trade stands, view competitions and much more.

Events are planned include: NSA Scotsheep, Thursday, May 27, Over Finlarg Farm, Tealing, Dundee; and NSA North Sheep, Wednesday, June 2, Bradford House Farm, Ponteland, Northumberland.

It is anticipated that event trade and breed society bookings will open from Monday, November 2, for exhibitors to secure their place at the 2021 events. All measures will be put in place to ensure events will be Covid-19 safe and operate to current Government guidance on the day.

For more information, see the NSA website at http://www.nationalsheep.org.uk.

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NSA looks to future with events planned for 2021 - Darlington and Stockton Times