Terrorism in the News
Russian hackers Attack Australian Utility
A Russian speaking ransomware gang has claimed credit for an attack on Australias electric Utility, CS Energy. Although the attackers claim to be Russian, Australian media reported that the Chinese government were the hackers behind the breach. The ransomware group is called Conti. Although it seems to be a China based ransomware company, a threat Analyst named Brett Callow believes that Conti is actually a Russian based cybercrime operation and not Chinese. Conti has increasingly attacked utilities, hospitals, and other critical infrastructure recently.
Chinese hackers attack 4 more US Defense and Tech Companies
The attacks from the Chinese hacking campaign are aimed to intercept sensitive information by stealing passwords from targeted organizations. 4 companies have been attacked in the month of December, with more to possibly come as the NSA conducts more extensive investigations.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/politics/china-hackers-espionage-defense-contractors/index.html
The Log4J Vulnerability and Chinese Hackers
A new vulnerability in software was revealed as the Log4J which is already being exploited by Chinese Hackers. Major companies such as Amazon and IBM have already addressed the bug. The flaw was found on an open-source library used by millions. The US CISA director Jen Easterly stated that this was one of the largest flaws shes seen in her career, if not the most serious ever. Log 4J is a Java based software vulnerability and is used by many large corporations to log information in their applications. Many governments across the world are seeing this as a huge vulnerability flaw and are quickly working to patch the issue before hackers exploit them.
