Lastest Cyber Issues: Theresa Payton Speaks with WBT 1110 AM radio

Webnotes by: Theresa Payton, Fortalice, LLC.

GUCCIFER STRIKES AGAIN

First "he" hits the Bush family and posts self portraits by Bush 43 and other photos and emails from the Bush family.

Then "he" hits Colin Powell's Facebook account and sends nasty messages to Bush 43 from Powell's account.  Now 

Guccifer has struck again. 

Guccifer broke into Sidney Blumenthal's emails, a person close to both Clintons.

He circulated what appear to be memos about Benghazi

According to some reports, Guccifer hacked into someone else's account not related to Clinton or Clinton friends and used that other account to forward 4 memos to the Press and Senate and House members along with US news outlets and some reporters at Russian media.

The media has not released much about the memos and will only say that "he" apparently cut and pasted the information out of documents, a common trick to protect your anonymity because a downloaded document might contain metadata about who you are and where you are.

Allegedly one of the cut and pasted memos was dated February 16, 2013 and was “from extremely sensitive sources and should be handled with care.”

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KIDS MIGHT GET SOME PROTECTION...FINALLY, BUT THERE IS A CATCH  (Isn't there always?)

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was enacted in 1998 but was beefed up by the FTC...

here is what happens this summer in July:

The rules are targeted at sites that market specifically to kids.

Sites like Tumblr, Google, Facebook will face stiff fines if minors have photos of themselves, photos with geocodes, or even audio or video of themselves

The sites will also be restricted on how they track kids 13 and under either through cookies or other means

There's a catch:  age verification is key and many kids lie to get on sites like Facebook.   Sites are only compelled by COPPA if THEY KNOW THE USER IS 13 OR YOUNGER

Facebook said:

"Facebook is focused on the safety and privacy of the teens who use our site. While Facebook's policies prohibit children under the age of 13 from signing up for our service, we are committed to improving protections for all young people online."

Another benefit hits MOBILE devices!

All data generated by mobile devices, as well as photos, videos and audio files containing a human image or voice, cannot be collected unless a parent first gives permission. 

The FTC’s December, 2012 report talks about their concerns for kids' safety and privacy on mobile devices in  “Mobile Apps for Kids: Disclosures Still Not Making the Grade.”

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BRIAN KREBS' A VICTIM OF SWATTING

Brian Krebs, one of the best cybersecurity reporters in the US, has been a victim of a complex hack.

Last Thursday, his website was hit with a denial of service attack and while undergoing the attack, 911 was tricked into believing Brian Krebs was being held at gunpoint and sent a Swat team to his house - a practice known as swatting.

What happened:

1.  Prolexic, the company that protects his website, received a strange letter that said it was from the FBI but it was false - it said the Brian Krebs cybersecurity site was hosting illegal content and profiting from cybercrime so his website protector needed to shut it down.

2.  Brian Krebs called the FBI and they said the letter was a fake.

3.  That's when the denial of service attack - flooding one web page with traffic in the hope of bringing it down, hit his site

4.  Later, as Brian was preparing for a dinner party, he ignored the phone ringing.  He went to the front door and then heard 

“Don’t move! Put your hands in the air.” It was the Fairfax County Police.

5.  The Police told Brian, after they all realized it was a hoax, that SWATting had become a real problem.  

By the way, the hackers spoofed Brian's REAL CELL PHONE number when they called 911 to report that Russians had broken into the home and were holding Brian hostage (which was not true!)

and on South Korea....

South Korea's military is on a high state of alert for cyber-attacks

What happened?

1.  3 news networks went down

2.  2 Banks had major problems with ATMs, teller terminals, and mobile banking

As the outages went on, South Korea reports that messages were flashing across screens:

1.  Skulls and a message that this was the beginning

2.  They called themselves the "WhoIsTeam" probably a play on words using the "WhoIs" question that you can ask about the owner of a website

Forensics are expected to take days or perhaps weeks.  The internet provider said the origin of the attack is "unclear"

Some wonder if this is "payback" or if hackers are hiding behind recent tensions on the Korea peninsula

Previously, North Korea has accused the United States and South Korea of staging cyber attacks against it.

Does North Korea have this capability?  Some think yes.  

Anti-virus firm McAfee said it believed a 10-day attack in 2011 came from North Korea.