CyberWire Daily - The CyberWire 12.23.15

Episode Date: December 23, 2015

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Call of Jihad, Rai Surprise, Juniper Investigation Points to RNG, Cyber Regulations, and Holiday Sense. investigation points to RNG, cyber regulations, and holiday scents. I'm Dave Bittner in Baltimore with your Cyber Wire daily summary for Wednesday, December 23, 2015. ISIS opens up a new recruitment tool, a first-person shooter game called Call of Jihad. An obvious knockoff of the popular Call of Duty, it remains to be seen how successfully gaming can bear the jihadist message, especially given how complicated that message's expression can be. See, for example, the Brookings Institute's thoughts on how terrorist

messaging is refracted through social media. Westchester County officials say it's news to them that the feds detected Iranian probing of their small dam in Rye, New York. County executives' reaction suggests, unsurprisingly, that intergovernment cyber threat information sharing may still suffer from implementation issues. Investigation into the Juniper backdoor now points toward a less-than-satisfactory random number generator once advocated by NSA. Cisco is inspecting its own code for similar issues and finds none so far, and observers expect other companies to undertake comparable self-examination. The spy banker Trojan courses through Brazil via Facebook and Twitter accounts. Joomla 2.4.7 is out and includes important security patches to the widely used

content management system. You may soon see a new error code in your browser. Joining 403, forbidden, and 404, not found, error 451 will tell you that legal obstacles, essentially if not exclusively censorship, prevent you from viewing content. The choice of 451 as the designator is an homage to Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and the temperature at which Bradbury said books burned. Internet privacy, censorship, and surveillance rules are enacted or debated in China, the EU, the UK, and the US. The tech sector is generally cool toward them, especially the British versions. As Christmas approaches, the Hello Kitty and VTech toy hacks continue to give parents the willies. Security companies offer much holiday-specific advice.

You should, for example, make sure that any old device you're replacing with new gift is securely wiped before you sell, toss, or give it away. And do remember how many toys are networked nowadays. Do you know the status of your compliance controls right now? Like, right now. We know that real-time visibility is critical for security, but when it comes to our GRC programs, we rely on point-in-time checks. But get this.

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That's vanta.com slash cyber for $1,000 off. Thank you. by businesses worldwide. ThreatLocker is a full suite of solutions designed to give you total control, stopping unauthorized applications, securing sensitive data, and ensuring your organization runs smoothly and securely. Visit ThreatLocker.com today to see how a default deny approach can keep your company safe and compliant. Joining me is John Petrick, editor of the Cyber Wire. John, from time to time we like to dig into our Cyber Wire glossary that we have on our website at thecyberwire.com. And today we're going to talk about sock puppets, not the thing that's in my kid's toy box.

When it comes to cyber, what is a sock puppet? A sock puppet is an online identity that's created and used for purposes of deception. So a sock puppet looks like an independent party who supports, approves of, or agrees with some person, some organization, some agency, or some state. But in fact, the sock puppet is created and controlled by the person or agency that they're endorsing. It has no independent existence.

And where would I encounter a sock puppet in the real world? Well, common uses of sock puppets include plausibly deniable information operations, provocations, fraudulent advertising, astroturfing, things like that. So, you might find a sock puppet, for example, in an online review of some product or service. If you find

that a product or service is being heavily endorsed in similar fashion, you may be seeing, in fact, a number of sock puppets that are being controlled by the offer. So, what's the best way for me to protect myself from sock puppetry? Be skeptical when you're online. Remember that the screen persona need not represent the reality behind it. John Patrick, editor of the Cyber Wire.

Thanks for joining us. We'll talk again soon. And now, a message from Black Cloak. Did you know the easiest way for cyber criminals to bypass your company's defenses is by targeting your executives and their families at home? Black Cloak's award-winning digital executive protection platform secures their personal devices, home networks, and connected lives. Because when executives are compromised at home, your company is at risk. In fact, over one-third of new members discover they've already been breached.

Protect your executives and their families 24-7, 365 with Black Cloak. Learn more at blackcloak.io. And that's The Cyber Wire. We are proudly produced in Maryland by our talented team of editors and producers. I'm Dave Bittner. Thanks for listening. Your business needs AI solutions that are not only ambitious, but also practical and adaptable. solutions that are not only ambitious, but also practical and adaptable. That's where Domo's AI and data products platform comes in. With Domo, you can channel AI and data into innovative uses that deliver measurable impact. Secure AI agents connect, prepare, and automate your data workflows, helping you gain insights, receive alerts, and act with ease through guided apps tailored to Thank you.