The Pentagon needs a plan to get punched in the mouth — Christopher M. Dougherty, C4ISRNET, 5/20/2021
This article is a few months old, but still absolutely relevant. According to Christopher M. Dougherty, senior fellow on the defense team at the Center for a New American Security, the United States Defense Department has focused on information dominance for too long and the time has come for it to focus on Degradation Dominance.
While Information Dominance creates huge networks and information channels, Degradation Dominance means the most important networks will have backups and keep running to a level that will still…
We need to stop referring to work as ‘family.’ Here’s why — Justin Pot, FastCompany / Zapier, 6/19/2021
This blog centers on risks and threats and I mostly write about external threats to organizations and nations. But today I want to discuss an article I read about internal business management. It is important to occasionally discuss internal management as employees could turn into a company’s worst threat.
One of the modern trends in business is for leadership to preach that their workplace is like a “family”. …
Do You Trust Your Smart TV? — Jessica Amado, Head of Cyber Research at Sepio Systems, 8/2/2021
This is a doomsday article showing how easy it is infiltrate a smart TV. All it takes is a “rubber ducky” — a USB device that looks legitimate and mirrors the appearance of a USB keyboard or mouse. The Rubber Ducky installs a payload that creates a Wi-Fi connection from the TV to an attacker’s computer. …
Do the Olympics promote nationalism — and international conflict? Here’s the research. — Kathleen E Powers, Monkey Cage Blog, 7/26/2021
I understood where the author was going in this article but didn’t understand her methodology nor her conclusion. This is a hodgepodge article which posts links to ideas with no real solution.
Here is what I can tell: international sports competition such as the Olympics raises nationalist ideals in people. There is a sense of pride when people see the best athletes of their country waving their flag and winning medals. It gives nations a sense of accomplishment.
Here is…
Revealed: leak uncovers global abuse of cyber-surveillance weapon — Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Paul Lewis, David Pegg, Sam Cutler, Nina Lakhani and Michael Safi, The Guardian, 7/18/2021
This should be a huge story with plenty of public conversation. According the Guardian, a huge list of 50,000 phone numbers targeted by the NSO Group’s phone hacking software Pegasus was leaked. This phone list contains the numbers of many journalists and government leaders around the world.
Many authoritarian countries have been found to use Pegasus to spy on anti-government media and other dissidents. Pegasus has been frequently found on the phones of people from…
The European Commission proposed to launch the new Joint Cyber Unit — Security Affairs.co, Pierluigi Paganini, 6/23/2021
Interesting article on how the European Union proposes to mitigate cyber attacks. According…
Get Off My WLAN — The Neon Temple, 6/24/2021
This is a good video by Tampa, Florida area cyber security group The Neon Temple. In this video, member s3cur3rth1ngs discusses what wifi is, gives an overview and history of the technology, then uses a wireless network card that supports monitor mode/packet injection, Kali Linux, the Aircrack-ng suite, and EAPHammer to simulate wifi hacks.
I liked this video as her walk-though was very easy to understand. I need to start doing more of these kind of activities. I will definitely use this video as a guide.
My only complaint is…
Monero emerges as crypto of choice for cybercriminals — HANNAH MURPHY, FINANCIAL TIMES, 6/22/2021
Interesting article on how Monero, a security-focused digital coin, has been increasingly used in ransomware payments. Whereas criminals and cyber no-gooders used to use bitcoin, the ability to track payments via the bitcoin ledger has lead malicious actors to seek coins that obscure the payment track.
Currently, Monero lacks the volume of bitcoin, but it’s transaction volume is still in the billions of dollars. Also to Monero’s disadvantage is that it is difficult to acquire, as most exchanges know it’s nefarious use.
Several years ago, I…
Michael Lortz
Writer. Analyst. Instructor. Sometimes serious. Sometimes creative. Just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe.
