What I'm Reading 3/10/2020 - Another Day Another Attack On An Electric Grid

Books -

Network Forensics Tracking Hackers Through Cyberspace

The Ten-Day MBA 4th Ed.: A Step-By-Step Guide To Mastering The Skills Taught In America's Top Business Schools

Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century


Blogs / News -

ThreatPost - Microsoft Exchange Server Flaw Exploited in APT Attacks -

Multiple threat groups are actively exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange servers, researchers warn. If left unpatched, the flaw allows authenticated attackers to execute code remotely with system privileges.

The vulnerability in question (CVE-2020-0688) exists in the control panel of Exchange, Microsoft’s mail server and calendaring server, and was fixed as part of Microsoft’s February Patch Tuesday updates. However, researchers in a Friday advisory said that unpatched servers are being exploited in the wild by unnamed advanced persistent threat (APT) actors.

 Al Jazeera - Philippines: Senators challenge Duterte's US defense withdrawal -

Senators in the Philippines have launched a Supreme Court challenge against the president scrapping a long-standing defence agreement with the United States.

 Business Insider - The Navy may not buy any more Ford-class supercarriers, acting Navy secretary says -

"I think we have a duty to look at what will come after the Ford," Modly told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, adding that the Navy has some "breathing room" before it has to figure out what exactly will come next.

The Future Carrier 2030 Task Force, which is yet to be announced, is expected to take six months to study how Navy carriers hold up against new threats from Russia and China, Breaking Defense's Paul McLeary reports, citing sources familiar with the planning.

Seattle PI - Judge blocks Trump Administration on publicizing 'ghost guns' instructions -

A federal judge in Seattle has blocked the Trump Administration's effort to allow instructions for 3D printed firearms, so-called "ghost guns," to be released online.

The files would permit plug-and-play access to 3D-printed firearms. The ghost guns are unregulated and untraceable and unlicensed, tough to detect even with a metal detector.

 Cyberscoop - European power grid organization says its IT network was hacked -

The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), whose members include large electric transmission operators across the continent, “recently found evidence of a successful cyber intrusion into its office network,” the organization said in a terse statement.

The compromised office network is not connected to any operational electric transmission system, ENTSO-E said, meaning the attack was confined to IT systems and did not impact critical control systems.

Security Boulevard - California Proposal for Mandatory Cyber Insurance -

On Feb. 15, California Assemblyman Ed Chau, representing the Western San Gabriel Valley (near President Nixon’s old stomping ground of Whittier) introduced AB 2320, which would, if passed, require any entity with a contract with any California government agency or department that “receives or has access to any records which contain any Personal Information” to “carry cyber insurance sufficient to cover all losses resulting from potential unlawful access to or disclosure of personal information, in an amount determined by the contracting agency.” 

ZDNet - Years-long campaign targets hackers through trojanized hacking tools -

"To me, it looks like someone, or a group of people, are making a pretty clever shortcut into getting access to more machines," Amit Serper, VP of Security Strategy at Cybereason, told ZDNet.

"Instead of actively hacking machines, just trojanize the tools, spread them for free, and hack the people who use the tools," Serper said, referring to an old tactic on the cybercrime scene where hackers steal their rivals' hacked data.