TechLetters #129 Russians training defence from cyberattacks on industrial systems. Russian Kaspersky employees iPhone's hacked. Quantum computing recommendations, AI-drone U.S. Air Force drama.

Security

Russian red teaming exercises use malware that may hack industrial systems. "designed to cause electric power disruption by interacting with IEC 60870-5-104 (IEC-104) devices, such as remote terminal units"

iPhone hacking campaign. Among the victims is a cybersecurity company Kaspersky. Interesting. Tens of Kaspersky employees using iPhones were being targeted and hacked. "indication of the presence of Triangulation on the device is the disabling of the ability to update iOS". "Kaspersky was not the main target of this cyberattack". Cyberattack campaign ongoing since 2019. Interesting, the malware uses canvas fingerprinting, studied by privacy researchers. With these tools, you can check if an iPhone is infected with this surveillance system.

Russian FSB goes further… Curiosity. Russian FSB alleges that US is using Apple's devices in intelligence operations. "infection of foreign diplomatic missions and embassies in Russia , countries of the NATO and post-Soviet space, Israel, Syria and China, have been identified"… Specifically, they allege that the used vulnerabilities are "provided by the manufacturer", which is doubtful, right?

Quantum computing recommendations. Issued by US government advisory committee. "Exploratory research sometimes yields advances that may pose national security risks". "Once the new post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standards are published, the United States should proceed expeditiously with migration to PQC". “The current target date for migration of Federal systems is 2035; an earlier completion date would be highly preferable”.

Privacy

Technology Policy

In US Air Force excercise/simulation/story an AI-drone decides to attack the human operator. Because it 'identified it' as an obstacle to effectiveness. Is this the future you want? :-) This supposedly happened in parts of a ‘simulation’, or a ‘prepared story’, or… unclear even. Anyway: “We trained the system – ‘Hey don’t kill the operator – that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that’. So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target”. The Times cover is not related. Also, nice overview here. Also, the army PR people had a bad week.

Other

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