US cyber attack on Iran exploited flaw in heavily-guarded network, experts say

AFP — A cyber attack on Iranian missile systems claimed by the US last week would have had to exploit a flaw in the heavily-guarded network, experts said.

Citing US official sources, American media last week reported that the Army Cyber Command had crippled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s air defense units that shot down a sophisticated drone on June 20.

IRANIAN HACKERS LAUNCH A NEW US-TARGETED CAMPAIGN AS TENSIONS MOUNT

WHEN TWO COUNTRIES begin to threaten war in 2019, it's a safe bet that they've already been hacking each other's networks. Right on schedule, three different cybersecurity firms now say they've watched Iran's hackers try to gain access to a wide array of US organizations over the past few weeks, just as military tensions between the two countries rise to a breaking point—though it's not yet clear whether those hacker intrusions are aimed at intelligence gathering, laying the groundwork for a more disruptive cyberattack, or both.

Army conducts major cyber warfare workshop

NEW DELHI: The army is conducting a major cyber warfare workshop for understanding the disruptive technologies being used by terrorists and in building capabilities to counter them. 

The Directorate of Indian Defence University (IDU) of the Headquarter Integrated Defence Staff is organising a workshop on ‘exploitation of technology by non-state actors and building capacities of own forces to counter them’ from Wednesday to Thursday in Delhi. 

Family who helped Snowden asks Canada for asylum

A lawyer for a family who sheltered fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden asked Canada on Wednesday to take them in as refugees, saying they were being persecuted in Hong Kong.

Guillaume Cliche-Rivard of the non-governmental group For the Refugees, which in March sponsored two other Snowden "Guardian Angels," Philippine national Vanessa Rodel and her seven-year-old daughter Keana, made the plea on "humanitarian grounds" at a press conference.

Should private companies be drafted in the cyber war?

Moody’s recently announced a rating outlook downgrade for Equifax, linking the decision to spiraling costs from the massive 2017 data breach that topped $690 million last quarter and are anticipated to remain high as the company continues investing in cybersecurity infrastructure. In today’s modern cyber threat environment, the impacts of a fumbled incident response are beginning to manifest themselves in new, costly ways.

This decision follows a December 2018 report by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform that found Equifax “failed to implement an adequate security program to protect this sensitive data. As a result, Equifax allowed one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history.”