Forwarded from BlackBox (Security) Archiv
Attacking the Heart of the German Industry
For a number of years now, a group of professional hackers has been busy spying on businesses all over the world: Winnti. Believed to be controlled by China. For the first time, in a joint investigation, German public broadcasters BR and NDR are shedding light on how the hackers operate and how widespread they are.
This investigation starts with a code: daa0 c7cb f4f0 fbcf d6d1. If you know what to look for, you’ll find Winnti. Hackers who have been spying on businesses all over the world for years. A group, presumably China-based, has honed in on Germany and its DAX corporations. For the first time ever, BR and NDR reporters have successfully analyzed hundreds of the malware versions used for that unsavory purpose. The targets: At least six DAX corporations, the stock-listed top companies of the German industry.
Winnti is a highly complex structure that is difficult to penetrate. The term denotes both a sophisticated malware and an actual group of hackers. IT security experts like to call them digital mercenaries. Since at least 2011, these hackers have been using malware to spy on corporate networks. Their mode of operation: to collect information on the organizational charts of companies, on cooperating departments, on the IT systems of individual business units, and on trade secrets, obviously.
Asked about the group an IT security expert who has been analyzing the attacks for years replies, tongue in cheek: “Any DAX corporation that hasn’t been attacked by Winnti must have done something wrong.” A high-ranking German official says: “The numbers of cases are mind-boggling.” And claims that the group continues to be highly active—to this very day. The official’s name will remain undisclosed, as will names of the more than 30 people whom we were able to interview for this article: Company staff, IT security experts, government officials, and representatives of security authorities. They are either not willing or not allowed to speak frankly. But they are allowed to reveal some of their tactics.
This allows us to find the software and to figure out for ourselves how the attackers work. Thanks to the help received from the informers, we, the reporters, are able to get on to the group. Part of their trail is the following code: daa0 c7cb f4f0 fbcf d6d1.
👉🏼 Read the full story without ads n shit:
https://rwtxt.lelux.fi/blackbox/attacking-the-heart-of-the-german-industry
#hacker #china #winnti #attack #spionage #cyberattack #cyberspionage #BASF #Siemens #Henkel
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_ES
For a number of years now, a group of professional hackers has been busy spying on businesses all over the world: Winnti. Believed to be controlled by China. For the first time, in a joint investigation, German public broadcasters BR and NDR are shedding light on how the hackers operate and how widespread they are.
This investigation starts with a code: daa0 c7cb f4f0 fbcf d6d1. If you know what to look for, you’ll find Winnti. Hackers who have been spying on businesses all over the world for years. A group, presumably China-based, has honed in on Germany and its DAX corporations. For the first time ever, BR and NDR reporters have successfully analyzed hundreds of the malware versions used for that unsavory purpose. The targets: At least six DAX corporations, the stock-listed top companies of the German industry.
Winnti is a highly complex structure that is difficult to penetrate. The term denotes both a sophisticated malware and an actual group of hackers. IT security experts like to call them digital mercenaries. Since at least 2011, these hackers have been using malware to spy on corporate networks. Their mode of operation: to collect information on the organizational charts of companies, on cooperating departments, on the IT systems of individual business units, and on trade secrets, obviously.
Asked about the group an IT security expert who has been analyzing the attacks for years replies, tongue in cheek: “Any DAX corporation that hasn’t been attacked by Winnti must have done something wrong.” A high-ranking German official says: “The numbers of cases are mind-boggling.” And claims that the group continues to be highly active—to this very day. The official’s name will remain undisclosed, as will names of the more than 30 people whom we were able to interview for this article: Company staff, IT security experts, government officials, and representatives of security authorities. They are either not willing or not allowed to speak frankly. But they are allowed to reveal some of their tactics.
This allows us to find the software and to figure out for ourselves how the attackers work. Thanks to the help received from the informers, we, the reporters, are able to get on to the group. Part of their trail is the following code: daa0 c7cb f4f0 fbcf d6d1.
👉🏼 Read the full story without ads n shit:
https://rwtxt.lelux.fi/blackbox/attacking-the-heart-of-the-german-industry
#hacker #china #winnti #attack #spionage #cyberattack #cyberspionage #BASF #Siemens #Henkel
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_ES
Forwarded from BlackBox (Security) Archiv
The intelligence coup of the century’
For decades, the CIA read the encrypted communications of allies and adversaries.
For more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted a single company to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret.
The company, Crypto AG, got its first break with a contract to build code-making machines for U.S. troops during World War II. Flush with cash, it became a dominant maker of encryption devices for decades, navigating waves of technology from mechanical gears to electronic circuits and, finally, silicon chips and software.
The Swiss firm made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican.
But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence. These spy agencies rigged the company’s devices so they could easily break the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages.
The decades-long arrangement, among the most closely guarded secrets of the Cold War, is laid bare in a classified, comprehensive CIA history of the operation obtained by The Washington Post and ZDF, a German public broadcaster, in a joint reporting project.
👉🏼 Read more:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/?itid=hp_hp-top-table-main_crypto-730am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
👉🏼 In German:
https://www.zdf.de/politik/frontal-21
#CIA #BND #USA #Germany #spionage #cryptoAG #thinkabout #why
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
For decades, the CIA read the encrypted communications of allies and adversaries.
For more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted a single company to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret.
The company, Crypto AG, got its first break with a contract to build code-making machines for U.S. troops during World War II. Flush with cash, it became a dominant maker of encryption devices for decades, navigating waves of technology from mechanical gears to electronic circuits and, finally, silicon chips and software.
The Swiss firm made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican.
But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence. These spy agencies rigged the company’s devices so they could easily break the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages.
The decades-long arrangement, among the most closely guarded secrets of the Cold War, is laid bare in a classified, comprehensive CIA history of the operation obtained by The Washington Post and ZDF, a German public broadcaster, in a joint reporting project.
👉🏼 Read more:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/?itid=hp_hp-top-table-main_crypto-730am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
👉🏼 In German:
https://www.zdf.de/politik/frontal-21
#CIA #BND #USA #Germany #spionage #cryptoAG #thinkabout #why
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
The CIA secretly bought a company that sold encryption devices across the world. Then its spies sat back and listened.
via www.washingtonpost.com
#cia #encryption #cryptoag #spionage #scandal #usa #why
via www.washingtonpost.com
#cia #encryption #cryptoag #spionage #scandal #usa #why
www.washingtonpost.com via ctreaderbot
The CIA secretly bought a company that sold encryption devices across the world. Then its spies sat back and listened.
National Security
Forwarded from BlackBox (Security) Archiv
The head of Denmark’s spy program has been fired for snooping on citizens and lying about it
The government in Denmark has fired 3 top officials from the country’s foreign intelligence agency, the Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE), following revelations from a whistleblower. The officials, including the head of the agency, Lars Finden, have been “relieved of duty for the time being” following the release of a trove of documents. The documents detailed that the FE has been illegally spying on Danish citizens in the last six years and were released by an unnamed whistleblower to the independent regulator of Danish security services which is known as Tilsynet med Efterretningstjenesterne (TET).
Whistleblower reveals Danish spying, gets Danish spy chief fired
According to a press release by the TET, Danish intelligence had maintained “operational activities in violation of Danish law, including obtaining and passing on a significant amount of information about Danish citizens.” Additionally, the TET noted that the FE had not only withheld information but actually reported back to overseers “incorrect information on matters relating to the collection of the service and disclosure of information.”
Prior to the whistleblower’s documents making their way to the TET, the FE had been stonewalling investigations on whether foreign intelligence spying capabilities had been used on domestic targets. The press release went on to note that Danish intelligence actually passed on the information to other countries. Unfortunately, due to the “extremely sensitive” nature of the information, it’s possible that we’ll ever know specifically who was spied on, for whom, or why.
👀 👉🏼 🇬🇧 https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/the-head-of-denmarks-spy-program-has-been-fired-for-snooping-on-citizens-and-lying-about-it/
#denmark #spy #spionage #thinkabout
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
📡@NoGoolag
The government in Denmark has fired 3 top officials from the country’s foreign intelligence agency, the Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE), following revelations from a whistleblower. The officials, including the head of the agency, Lars Finden, have been “relieved of duty for the time being” following the release of a trove of documents. The documents detailed that the FE has been illegally spying on Danish citizens in the last six years and were released by an unnamed whistleblower to the independent regulator of Danish security services which is known as Tilsynet med Efterretningstjenesterne (TET).
Whistleblower reveals Danish spying, gets Danish spy chief fired
According to a press release by the TET, Danish intelligence had maintained “operational activities in violation of Danish law, including obtaining and passing on a significant amount of information about Danish citizens.” Additionally, the TET noted that the FE had not only withheld information but actually reported back to overseers “incorrect information on matters relating to the collection of the service and disclosure of information.”
Prior to the whistleblower’s documents making their way to the TET, the FE had been stonewalling investigations on whether foreign intelligence spying capabilities had been used on domestic targets. The press release went on to note that Danish intelligence actually passed on the information to other countries. Unfortunately, due to the “extremely sensitive” nature of the information, it’s possible that we’ll ever know specifically who was spied on, for whom, or why.
👀 👉🏼 🇬🇧 https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/the-head-of-denmarks-spy-program-has-been-fired-for-snooping-on-citizens-and-lying-about-it/
#denmark #spy #spionage #thinkabout
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
📡@NoGoolag
PIA VPN Blog
The head of Denmark's spy program has been fired for snooping on citizens and lying about it
The government in Denmark has fired 3 top officials from the country’s foreign intelligence agency, the Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE), following