Crossroads Blog | Institute National Security and Counterterrorism

Current Affairs, cyber attack, Cyber Command, regulation, Stuxnet

Cyber Roundup (3/23): Duqu’s back, How the AF views the future of cyber, and ISPs pledge to fight botnets

A quick survey of today's news . . .

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Matt Liebowitz (of SecurityNewsDaily) reported for msnbc.com on how a reworked version of Duqu was recently found in Iran.  Interestingly, the old Duqu code was improved so that the malware could better evade detection by security products.  According to the article, Symantec concluded that this new development means the people behind Duqu are still active.

Duqu is generally regarded as an information-collection malware: Duqu feeds information to its handlers, allowing them to tailor its more fiendish cousin Stuxnet.

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Phillip Ewing reported for DoDBuzz on how the US Air Force views cybersecurity 20 years out.  The article focused on USAF Gen. William Shelton's (head of Space Command) thoughts regarding the future of cyber: we'll need to make sure that cyber and air domains can blend, that "[o]ld-fashioned cyber-defense also will remain critical . . .", that we can identify and protect our essential assets while abandoning "diseased applications", and that we can solve command authority issues between CyberCommand and the separate service cyber commands.

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Grant Gross wrote for InfoWorld on how U.S. ISPs have committed to battling 3 major cyber threats.  According to the article, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon adopted FCC advisory committee recommendations to fight "botnets, domain name fraud and Internet route hijacking."

The InfoWorld article quoted FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on the ISP's decision: "These actions will have a significant positive impact on Internet security . . . If you own a PC, you'll be significantly better protected against your computer [being] taken over by a bad actor, who could destroy your private files or steal your personal information."

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Te-Ping Chen reported for the Wall Street Journal on how a cyberattack targeted a Hong Kong voting project.

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