cyber security

On Friday, Ben Wallace, the Minister of State for Security for the United Kingdom, said in a BBC radio interview the UK government believes a North Korean hacking group was responsible for the “WannaCry” malware attack, which shut down Britain’s National Health Service data system in May. “I obviously can’t ...

Since roughly 2009, North Korea has been active and noisy in cyberspace. From the hacking of government web sites in South Korea and the United States to the trashing of South Korean bank and media company information systems, the revenge attack on Sony, the infiltration of South Korean infrastructures such ...

In December 2014, while many were still preoccupied with the aftermath of the North Korean cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, South Korea was in a crisis of its own. An entity identifying itself as an “Anti-Nuclear Power Group” demanded that the country shut down three of its civilian nuclear reactors by ...

FBI Director James Comey confirmed on Monday, for the first time, that the agency is conducting an investigation into whether there was any coordination between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. Comey told the House Intelligence Committee the investigation into possible Trump-Russia connections ...

Security researchers and policymakers around the world are struggling with the challenge of securing the digital networks that governments, private companies, and people in general depend on every day. While the most common points of reference to engagements in cyberspace are in the United States, Europe, Russia, and China, other ...

As an economic power and pivotal regional player in Asia, India is home to the second-highest number of internet users of any country in the world. Its role in establishing norms in cyberspace, as well as how it approaches securing networks, could have a lasting impact on the security and ...

As connectivity increases, India is beginning to put in motion efforts to secure its government and private networks. Like other countries, India is experiencing the an abundance of cybercrime, hacktivism, and cyber espionage. The Cipher Brief spoke with Cherian Samuel, Research Fellow in the Strategic Technologies Centre at the Institute ...

It is not clear whether a group of Russians arrested on charges of treason for helping U.S. intelligence, involve CIA assets, despite a claim to the contrary, two former CIA Russia specialists said Wednesday. The three people arrested were identified by lawyer Ivan Pavlov as Sergei Mikhailov and Dmitry Dokuchayev, ...

Like many other governments, China is seeking to reestablish its sovereignty over the digital sphere with a new Cybersecurity Law. But while the law could help address China's national security issues, critics argue the law gives the government free reign to conduct surveillance and systematically censor political dissent, while also ...

The Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and subsequent leaking of sensitive internal communications has remained front and center in the U.S. consciousness. President-elect Donald Trump has consistently dismissed the U.S. intelligence community’s unanimous conclusions on Russian culpability, creating a deep rift between the incoming administration and those ...

Iranian hacks into the social media accounts of U.S. State Department officials are the latest signal from Tehran that it is not looking to turn the page on its embattled relationship with Washington. They also reflect the diversification underway in Iranian cyberwarfare tactics, which in recent years have expanded from ...

Iran is a second tier cyber power. By the standards of other state actors, its capabilities—both offensive and defensive—are relatively modest, but they are growing steadily. Cyber operations have also become an integral component of Iranian military doctrine and strategy, which place a heavy emphasis on the principles of asymmetry ...

Through a series of attacks over the last three years, Iran has revealed a limited offensive cyber capability but a willingness to use it to meet its geopolitical goals. In testimony calling out Iran for attacks on Sands Casinos, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper put Iranian cyber capability in ...

To understand what domestic and strategic factors may have encouraged Iran to seek stronger cyber-capabilities, it helps to look at the several ways Iran uses such capabilities. First, Iran wants to keep its citizens under surveillance. Second, Iran wants to know the intentions and capabilities of other countries. Third, Iran ...