Panda-ering

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Attribution: China Hack by Frank Hansen, PoliticalCartoons.com

How a Cloud Flaw Gave Chinese Spies a Key to Microsoft’s Kingdom | WIRED

FOR MOST IT professionals, the move to the cloud has been a godsend. Instead of protecting your data yourself, let the security experts at Google or Microsoft protect it instead. But when a single stolen key can let hackers access cloud data from dozens of organizations, that trade-off starts to sound far more risky.

Late Tuesday evening, Microsoft revealed that a China-based hacker group, dubbed Storm-0558, had done exactly that. The group, which is focused on espionage against Western European governments, had accessed the cloud-based Outlook email systems of 25 organizations, including multiple government agencies.

Those targets encompass US government agencies including the State Department, according to CNN, though US officials are still working to determine the full scope and fallout of the breaches. An advisory from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency says the breach, which was detected in mid-June by a US government agency, stole unclassified email data “from a small number of accounts.”

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19 thoughts on “Panda-ering”

  1. Microsoft Email Hack Shows Greater Sophistication, Skill of China’s Cyberspies (msn.com)

    The hack of email accounts of senior U.S. officials including the commerce secretary is the latest feat from a network of Chinese state-backed hackers whose leap in sophistication has alarmed U.S. cybersecurity officials. 
    The espionage was aimed at a limited number of high-value U.S. government and corporate targets. Though the number of victims appeared to be small, the attack—and others unearthed in the last few months linked to China—demonstrated a new level of skill from Beijing’s large hacker army, and prompted concerns that the extent of its infiltration into U.S. government and corporate networks is far greater than currently known.
    Even just a few years ago, Chinese hackers were known among cybersecurity investigators for loud smash-and-grab heists of intellectual property, military technology and even a database of U.S. government employees’ personal information. The sometimes crude tactics, while effective, were often geared toward collecting huge troves of data rather than spying persistently on valuable targets, and typically left traces that made the hackers easy to identify and guard against in the future.
    China’s hacker army used to be “noisy” and “rudimentary,” George Barnes, the deputy director of the National Security Agency, said Thursday at an intelligence conference. The new hack and others identified in the past few months have shown that Beijing’s sophistication “continues to increase,” he said.
    The latest attack focused on the Microsoft email accounts of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, State Department officials and others not publicly disclosed. It is already being rated by some security experts as among the most technically sophisticated and stealthy ever discovered, though many details—including how it began—haven’t been shared by Microsoft. It and other recently disclosed cyber-espionage operations suggest Chinese hackers can now burrow deep into high-level computer networks and evade detection for months or even years.  
    The U.S. hasn’t formally linked the attack to China, though Microsoft attributed it to a Chinese hacking group and officials and lawmakers have said Beijing is responsible. China has denied the allegations. 
    [continues]

  2. [more from the WSJ]

    In 2015 the U.S. and China agreed to scale back cyberattacks, and operations against Western targets appeared to decline. Then, in 2020 they began to increase again, only with much greater sophistication.
    Fueled by the threat of ransomware attacks mostly emanating from Eastern Europe, companies had gotten better at detecting attacks. So the Chinese switched focus and began hitting devices on the edge of corporate networks—hacks that were less likely to trigger security warnings, said Charles Carmakal, the chief technology officer with Google’s Mandiant cybersecurity group.
    With the latest attack, the Chinese went a step further in their stealth technique. They gained access to the guts of Microsoft’s cryptographic protection system and used it to produce digital tokens—long strings of numbers and letters that are stored in the browser and act as a digital passport for Microsoft’s online services. 
    “They’re hitting where the log data doesn’t exactly light up like a siren to tell you what’s wrong,” said Matt Durrin, director of training and research at the security consulting firm LMG Security. 
    U.S. officials and Microsoft researchers disclosed on Tuesday that hackers linked to China breached email accounts at more than two dozen organizations, including some U.S. government agencies. American officials later said that Raimondo and senior officials at the State Department were among those in the government whose unclassified accounts were compromised. 
    [continues]

  4. My first question about this China email hackery is whether it’s possible for at least high government officials to use to some sort of internally managed secure messaging system, instead of using a third party (Microsoft, in this case)? When I was dealing with the VA health care system for my Dad, they seemed to have more secure messaging. It was cumbersome and sometimes annoying but you could only communicate via their website, not with an email client like Outlook or Gmail etc. You could get a notification you had a message via regular email, but had to log in to their site to read. This is also how my own health care company manages communication with my doctor.

  6. Craig – The messaging system that I heard Mark Cuban mention was called Dust. 

    https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/news/2014/12/18/mark-cuban-cyber-dust-sony-email-dallas-mavericks.html

    “When you send a text or email (you) lose ownership of the message but not responsibility.”

    https://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/12/mark-cuban-sony-cyber-dust

    “The app quickly deletes messages after they are read and alerts users when a screengrab is taken.”

    “In addition to his business negotiations outside of the Mavericks, Cuban said he uses Cyber Dust for pretty much everything in the basketball organization unless it requires a document or something that he needs to save (in which case he uses traditional email).”

  10. Craig – we were supposed to use the “Encrypt” function in Outlook and the other MS office programs.  Also, no classified material was supposed to be in the regular system.  MS Azure and Amazon AWS are both supposed to be secure and handle very high level classified material.  I have not read on the hack yet, but will later today, after migraine attack is under control.

  12. Worth the Price of Admission ⬇️
     

    HoneycombKid

    HoneycombKid
    Posted February 25, 2012

     

    Hello,
     
    I just found this site and saw the question about the Jimmie Rodgers tuning and guitar technique.
    My name is Michael Rodgers and I am Jimmie’s son. His tuning is an open E G# B E G# B 
    He developed his style of playing a hard right hand rhythm trying to keep people dancin in the honky tonks of Nashville while working as a solo act.
    You will notice that on Honeycomb he changes keys in the song after every verse by moving up the frets a half step. For songs needing a minor tuning like his “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” he detunes the G# strings to a G. His style continued to develop throughout his career and he is able to do some amazing finger picking and thumb work on songs like “It’s Over and many other of his hits. I hope this helps answer your questions in some way. Thanks for your interest in his work. All the best,
    Michael Rodgers

  13. “Hard right hand rhythm”.  lol
    It’s how you play when the drummer like can’t make the gig.    

  16. Otay – I read up on the Chinese intrusions into the various email, and possibly other data, of the feds. Nothing new or exciting.  The systems picked up on the intrusions and stopped them.  Some data was lost, I am sure the emails were hit because someone accepted a phising email.  The rest is normal stuff the Chinese, Russian, Cuban, and other countries are trying to exploit.
     
    One of the funniest, at least to me, was the day the Russians were trying to hack into my federal email account.  I got a call from the IT security of the agency I worked for asking if I was trying to get into my account using a password.  I said “no, but I am watching the Russians trying to hack into one of my personal accounts on my cellphone.”  I was in my account doing work.  This was simultaneous! The idiots were trying to hack multiple accounts of mine, including a U.S. account. 
     
    A little later IT gathered up my computer and I enjoyed a few days of not having to do my job.  It was sent off to “Dell” for a checkup.  Yeah, sure, my ass.  It was most likely sent to NSA, FBI or CIA for a checkup.  When it was returned a few days later it had a new motherboard and keyboard.  The only thing original was the case. 
     
    I was the “problem child” due to my previous life and how much the Russians, and then the Chinese, were interested in me.  Oh so much fun.  I always warned my new co-workers that they might have new “friends”, but do not worry about them, they were only interested in me.  Most did not understand until it was explained to them that I have a Russian and Chinese problem.

  17. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/14/politics/donald-trump-fani-willis-georgia-grand-jury/index.html

    “Trump’s lawyers filed petitions this week attempting to throw out the evidence collected last year by a special grand jury, banning prosecutors from presenting that material to a newly empaneled grand jury that has charging powers, and disqualifying District Attorney Fani Willis from any related proceedings.”

    “Lawyers for Trump say letting the investigation proceed would lead to “a violation of his fundamental constitutional rights” while he “seeks his Party’s nomination for the Presidency of the United States.”

    “Trump’s lawyers filed the separate petitions with the Fulton County Superior Court as well as the Georgia Supreme Court, asking them to intervene with the ongoing grand jury process.”

    “Throughout the probe, Willis used a “special purpose grand jury” to hear evidence from 75 witnesses including Trump advisers, his former attorneys, White House aides and Georgia officials. But Trump’s lawyers argued that these special grand juries are themselves unconstitutional.”

    “It is one thing to indict a ham sandwich. To indict the mustard-stained napkin that it once sat on is quite another,” the lawyers wrote.

    Ha! Nonsense! Jibberish! Muckelty-dung!

  18. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/disney-board-extends-ceo-igers-contract-2026-2023-07-12/

    “Walt Disney’s (DIS.N) board on Wednesday extended Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger’s contract by two years as the experienced leader who came out of retirement in 2022 battles long-term challenges to its film and television businesses.”

    “Terms of his contract include opportunity to receive an annual incentive bonus of five times his base salary.”

    WOW!

    “ In his previous contract, he was entitled to an estimated $27 million per year in total compensation.”

    And, he’s whining about the writers getting paid fairly?

    “In February, Disney said it would cut 7,000 jobs in a major overhaul to save $5.5 billion in costs.”

    But he has no problem taking the bread out of someone else’s mouth.

    https://www.vulture.com/2023/07/disney-ceo-sag-strike.html

    “I understand any labor organization’s desire to work on behalf of its members to get the most compensation and be compensated fairly based on the value that they deliver,” the CEO continued, before saying Hollywood’s woes would worsen if it gave in to those asking for fair pay and protections against AI. “We managed, as an industry, to negotiate a very good deal with the directors guild that reflects the value that the directors contribute to this great business. We wanted to do the same thing with the writers, and we’d like to do the same thing with the actors. There’s a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic. And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”

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