ClearSky Cyberdefense Forum

Since February 2011, members of the Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit(TM) (CTU) have been engaged in a project to uncover and track as many elements as possible of the so-called “Advanced Persistent Threat” (APT), the term commonly used to refer to cyber-espionage activity carried out against governments, activists, and industry. “Elements” can be anything that provides a point of information — malware, command and control (C2) domains, hostnames, IP addresses, actors, exploits, targets, tools, tactics, and so on. Even though this project is not (and probably never will be) complete, CTU researchers have learned a great deal about the scope and scale of the threat so far, and the insights have been disturbing.

http://www.secureworks.com/research/threats/chasing_apt/

A hacker attack that leads to planes dropping from the sky is the stuff of every cyberwar doomsday prophesy. But some security researchers imagine a less sensational, if equally troubling possibility: Hundreds or thousands of aircraft radioing their approach to an air traffic control tower, and no way to sort through which are real and which are ghost plane signals crafted by a malicious hacker.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/07/25/next-gen-air-traffic-control-vulnerable-to-hackers-spoofing-planes-out-of-thin-air/

It doesn’t take much to imagine the consequences of a successful cyber attack. In a future conflict, an adversary unable to match our military supremacy on the battlefield might seek to exploit our computer vulnerabilities here at home. Taking down vital banking systems could trigger a financial crisis. The lack of clean water or functioning hospitals could spark a public health emergency. And as we’ve seen in past blackouts, the loss of electricity can bring businesses, cities and entire regions to a standstill.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444330904577535492693044650.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

http://www.infosecisland.com/documentview/21980-The-Revised-Cybersecurity-Act-of-2012.html

A malware was created to infect AutoCAD software systems and send stolen data to email addresses running on the Chinese-operated Internet provider 163.com. According to an article on eWeek, the purpose of these cyber attacks is to gain information on designs and business proposals and possibly bid on the same contracts at a lower price. The impact of these types of attacks can include potential losses of lucrative contracts to other firms who gain access to this information as well as the compromise of important company data.

http://www.eset.com/fileadmin/Images/US/Docs/Business/white_Papers/ESET_ACAD_Medre_A_whitepaper.pdf

http://midsizeinsider.com/en-us/article/cyber-attack-threatens-autocad-software

Smart grids, upgraded versions of electricity networks with two-way digital communication, should make the European energy system more efficient. But their dependency on computer networks, applications and the Internet makes society more vulnerable to malicious cyber attacks with potentially devastating results, European Network and Information Security Agency said in a report published on Tuesday.

http://www.enisa.europa.eu/activities/Resilience-and-CIIP/critical-infrastructure-and-services/smart-grids-and-smart-metering/ENISA-smart-grid-security-recommendations/at_download/fullReport

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/259006/smart_energy_grids_need_protection_from_cyber_attacks_enisa_says.html