By the CyberWire staff Russia’s SVR suspected in FireEye breach. Security firm FireEye disclosed on Tuesday that a “highly sophisticated state-sponsored adversary” had stolen the company’s proprietary red-teaming tools: “The stolen tools range from simple scripts used for automating reconnaissance to entire frameworks that are similar to publicly available technologies such as CobaltStrike and Metasploit. Many of the Red Team tools have already been released to the community and are already distributed in our open-source virtual machine, CommandoVM. Some of the tools are publicly available tools modified to evade basic security detection mechanisms. Other tools and frameworks were developed in-house for our Red Team. “The Red Team tools stolen by the attacker did not contain zero-day… Source link

This week’s admission by FireEye that a suspected nation-state made off with so-called red team test tools it uses to probe customers’ networks for vulnerabilities has made some infosec pros uneasy. On the one hand, as many experts quickly noted, this wasn’t like the 2017 Shadow Brokers hack of the NSA which publicly revealed secret software exploits the U.S. intelligence agency used to break into targets. FireEye describes the stolen goods as ranging from “simple scripts used for automating reconnaissance to entire frameworks that are similar to publicly available technologies such as CobaltStrike and Metasploit.” Many of the tools have already been released to the infosec community, it added. FireEye quickly released what it says are hundreds of countermeasures and signatures… Source link

NEW YORK, Dec. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Energy companies from 10 countries spanning four continents tonight received honors for leadership, innovation and exemplary performance at the 22nd annual S&P Global Platts Global Energy Awards, often described as the “Oscars” of energy. Actor-comedian-director Jason Alexander of cinema and television fame hosted the virtual event, which bestowed 22 awards upon companies and individuals.  Martin Fraenkel, president of S&P Global Platts: “In a year that was so tumultuous, it was particularly impressive and heartening to see how this year’s group of winners re-organized around obstacles, forged ahead on ground-breaking technology, completed… Source link

Windows inserted itself between game programs and the computer hardware in a way that slowed down graphics and animation. Game developers vastly preferred the DOS operating system, which didn’t gum up their special effects. That created an opportunity for three Microsoft misfits—Eric Engstrom, Alex St. John and Craig Eisler. Also read: The pandemic push to the silver economy Mr. Engstrom, who died Dec. 1 at the age of 55, and his pals formed one of several factions within Microsoft trying to solve the game problem. Openly contemptuous of colleagues who didn’t share their ideas, they were so obnoxious that Brad Silverberg, who ran the Windows business, dubbed them the Beastie Boys. He had to fend off frequent demands for their dismissal. Yet the solution they… Source link

FireEye is urging organizations to take precautions after suspected nation-state hackers breached the security vendor and stole its red team tools. The massive cyber attack, which FireEye disclosed Tuesday, was perpetrated by “a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities,” CEO Kevin Mandia wrote in a blog post. As part of the cyber attack, FireEye’s red team tools were stolen, which, as a second post released Tuesday evening explained, are tools used in red teaming exercises to demonstrate the “impacts of successful attacks” for clients. “The stolen tools range from simple scripts used for automating reconnaissance to entire frameworks that are similar to publicly available technologies such as CobaltStrike and Metasploit. Many of the Red Team tools have already been released to… Source link

In the early 1990s, Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system was dominant for office applications but a loser in the world of computer games. Windows inserted itself between game programs and the computer hardware in a way that slowed down graphics and animation. Game developers vastly preferred the DOS operating system, which didn’t gum up their special effects. That created an opportunity for three Microsoft misfits— Eric Engstrom, Alex St. John and Craig Eisler. Mr. Engstrom, who died Dec. 1 at the age of 55, and his pals formed one of several factions within Microsoft trying to solve the game problem. Openly contemptuous of colleagues who didn’t share their… Source link

OK, you monolith lovers, look what you’ve done. You have pooped all over the desert. This is the kind of s–t you can expect from people. The mysterious monolith in the Southern Utah desert was unknown until a state helicopter team spotted it in a small, remote drainage, placed there, no doubt, by aliens. (It appears on Google Earth in 2016.) As if seeking Mecca, the pilgrimage was on—followed by pooping, as though to bless or pay homage to the obelisk. Fortunately, four wise men… Source link

Sure, they have the launch of The Surgeon’s Cut tomorrow, but some weeks it kind of bites to be Netflix. Already fighting an uphill appeal battle against Fox (AKA Disney ) for poaching two of their executives a few years aback, on December 4, the Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos-led streamer were sued by Activision Blizzard for allegedly seducing away the latter’s CFO back in late 2018. Now, in a repeat of sorts of the skirmish with Fox, Netflix looks almost certain on Thursday to lose their legal dust-up with Viacom (now ViacomCBS) for snagging Momita Sengupta from the Shari Redstone controlled company two years ago. “The Court finds that Viacom’s employment agreements do not contain unlawful non-compete covenants for the simple reason that Netflix has failed to support… Source link

The UK has invited local communities to volunteer to home the UK’s first nuclear fusion reactor. Although still many years from completion, a fusion reactor would provide almost limitless energy while producing minimal waste, a long sought after idea by scientists worldwide. The Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) prototype will utilize the latest in fusion technology. The team hope to begin construction in 2030 and have the plant producing power by 2040. The STEP program is an ambitious UK effort to create a prototype fusion plant, with £222 million allocated so far to start development. “We want the UK to be a trailblazer in developing fusion energy by capitalising on its incredible… Source link

The headline from the Nov. 6, 1993, Mobile Register newspaper has become indelibly etched in the lore of the LSU-Alabama football rivalry. “Tide could lose,” it read, “pigs might fly.” It referred to the unlikely possibility of an Alabama team coming off the 1992 national championship and riding a 31-game unbeaten streak losing to a scuffling LSU team that was humiliated four weeks earlier in Tiger Stadium 58-3 by Florida, still the most lopsided loss in program history. LSU was a 25-point underdog. But on that day, the high-water mark of the otherwise under water Curley Hallman era came when the Tigers, with arguably their greatest upset, won 17-13… Source link