NSA Stopped Mass Storage Phone Data

US intelligence NSA has stopped the massive storage of telephone data, so reporting news agency Reuters, CNN and the intercept. In June, President Barack Obama decided to implement various reform measures and to limit the powers of the NSA.

So the Secret Service should not collect unfocused phone records of US citizens. Instead, the NSA will now have to be more focused work, in which first a court order is required, after which telecom operators may be asked to keep phone records of certain people or groups of people for a maximum period of six months.

The measure is a victory for privacy advocates and saw Edward Snowden, who felt that the NSA had this much power to spy on citizens. However, the NSA has asked the court to be allowed to continue using the data stored to date to February 29, 2016 on a limited scale. The judge must still here a judgment on it.

Whistleblower: Surfer Has No Chance Against NSA

Internet users have no chance to defend themselves against surveillance by the NSA, says whistleblower Bill Binney, which 37 years worked for the US Secret Service. Binney already warned of Edward Snowden, in 2011, for the surveillance practices of the NSA.

As Snowden Binney left ultimately with the Secret Service. In his own words because he saw how technology was meant to spy on terrorists was used to monitor US citizens. Since then, he seeks to address the privacy violations by US intelligence and investigation services. This week he made ​​an "Ask Me Anything" on the social news site Reddit.

When asked what people can do to protect themselves on the Internet and anonymous are advising him to use smoke signals. "With a budget of more than $ 10 billion a year that the NSA, they have more resources to collect your data than you ever can defend against," said the whistleblower. He sees the solution whatsoever in legislation. Binney therefore calls Americans to call their local politicians and complain about this. "If you do nothing, we are the cigar!".

It does not because if users use closed or open source software. "No software is safe for surveillance," claims Binney. He also makes it clear that the NSA large amounts of data it gathers not know how to use successful. Analysts can not meet the continuous data stream and therefore miss important information. Still, the NSA continues with the mass data storage.According to Binney deliberately, as this provides more funding.

NSA Would Most Zero-Day Vulnerabilities In Software Report

The NSA would be 91% of the most critical zero-day vulnerabilities it finds in software used in the United States or developed report, as the US Secret Service let the website know. How many software vulnerabilities and what exactly is going unreported.

The remaining 9% of the vulnerabilities found is resolved before the NSA, the supplier can inquire or is not reported due to national security reasons. Zero-day vulnerabilities are vulnerabilities for which no security update from the vendor is available.Through this kind of leak attackers have a greater chance of a successful attack, for example, to gain access to systems.

"The US government is committed to an open, interoperable, secure and reliable internet. In most cases, the reporting responsibility of a newly discovered vulnerability clearly in the national interest," according to the explanation of the NSA.Secret Service claims that there advantages and disadvantages to the decision to report a leak. This could cause the possibility of being lost to collect important foreign intelligence among other "terrorist attacks" may occur.

The NSA now uses a process to determine when it reports a vulnerability. "While these decisions may be complicated, the government tends to be a responsible and discreet reporting vulnerabilities." According to current and former government officials, the reassurances of the NSA, however, misleading, because the Secret Service vulnerabilities yourself first used to conduct attacks them before the companies inform that these problems can fix and patches to users can roll, reports news agency Reuters .

CIA Director Denounces Reporting On Email Hacking

CIA Director John Brennan, one of whom recently an old and disused private mail account was hacked, complains about the media coverage, as criminal activity in this way have given a platform. That Brennan recently said at a conference in Washington.

A teenager with two others knew an old AOL account Brennan via social engineering to hijack. In addition, were found several documents that WikiLeaks then made public. It was contact lists, recommendations on Afghanistan and Pakistan, addresses and phone numbers. Brennan According to some media have blown the incident and falsely claimed that he had done something wrong.

"Criminal activities provide a platform and disseminating information was inappropriate," as told the CIA director. Brennan says worrying about what people will do with the published data. He sees in the incident, the necessity that authorities have sufficient opportunities and powers to conduct investigations. The hacked AOL account since 2008 would no longer be used by Brennan, said AFP.

Private Mail Account CIA Director Hacked Through Social Engineering

A teenager with two others claiming the private mail account of CIA Director John Brennan to have hacked this social engineering used by itself if a telecom provider Verizon for doing so. That leaves the boy in front of Wired know.

As proof of the hack published the teen several sensitive documents on Twitter, including screening form that Brennan had to fill out to get his top secret powers. According to the teenager he worked with two others. The attack began with a "reverse lookup" for the phone number of Brennan. This showed that the CIA director was a customer of Verizon.Thereafter, it was one of the boys posing as an employee of Verizon and called the company for details on the account of Brennan.

"We told them we were working for Verizon customers and we had to call back." The excuse given was that the database was not accessible when the "employee" decided to call the company. After a fabricated employee code gave the teenagers got the information. It was Brennan's account number, four digit PIN, the mobile number that was set as a backup, the AOL e-mail address and the last four digits of his credit card.

With this information, called the AOL and teenagers reported that they had no access to their account. AOL asked for the name and number of the account data that had been the boys from Verizon. On October 12 she knew then gain access to the private account of Brennan. After several days the AOL account was eventually removed by Brennan.

Trend Micro: Simple Keylogger Costs Companies Millions

A simple commercial keylogger that is distributed has small and medium businesses worldwide millions of euros cost via e-mail attachments, claims the Japanese anti-virus company Trend Micro. It is the HawkEye keylogger offered on the Internet for a few bucks.

Once active, the keylogger is used to steal passwords from the browser and email client. This data is via e-mail, FTP and web panel sent to the attackers. With the stolen passwords to the email accounts of corporate executives, including the CEO and CFO acquired. Then there via the hijacked email accounts, a payment order sent to the accounting. This scam is also known as "Business Email Compromise" and would have caused worldwide last year to a loss of 216 million dollars.According to the FBI and Secret Service more and more American companies are affected by the fraud. The reason for the investigation services to a warning to deliver.

For the dissemination of the keylogger to send .exe and .zip files that are supposedly an invoice, purchase order or quote. In some cases, the criminals make first contact with the companies. Only after several e-mail exchanges, the keylogger will be sent. According to Trend Micro, the majority of victims of HawkEye in India, followed by Egypt and Iran. These are companies in different sectors, but mainly goods, transportation and manufacturing. It also appears that most companies are accessed via info @ email address.

Trend Micro made ​​a report ( pdf ) on HawkEye which also analyzed two Nigerian cyber criminals using the malware. According to the researchers HawkEye seem a simple keylogger, but is motivated cyber criminals more than sufficient to carry out malware attacks. Also by other security HawkEye was recently investigated as iSight Partners . The research shows that this security be used for the dissemination of keylogger files invoice.exe, payment and purchase slip.exe order.exe. ISight also argues that most victims are in India, but also see a lot of infections in Italy, the United States and Turkey. Furthermore, there are also infections observed in the Netherlands.

NSA Director Wants Access To Encrypted Data

The NSA wants technology give the secret service access to the encrypted data and communications from customers, but NSA director Mike Rogers does not speak of a "backdoor". According to Rogers, in the fight against terrorism necessary to decrypt encrypted devices.

"The discussion I have seen is mostly about all or nothing, or full encryption or no encryption", as the NSA director said yesterday during a cybersecurity forum in Washington. According to Rogers, it is feasible to establish a legal framework so that there can still gain access to encrypted data. He pointed to the fight against child pornography where technology companies with public authorities and hopes to achieve a similar cooperation in the field of encryption, reports AFP .

Alex Stamos, Chief Security Information Officer Yahoo asked Rogers if he wants technology backdoors add to their products and services. "Backdoor is not the context that I would use. If I use the term" backdoor "Sure, I think it is suspicious. Why would you want through the back door? It would be correct public should be," gave the NSA director reply . "We can develop a legal framework to do this. It's not something that we necessarily have to hide."