Schneier on Security

ResearcherZero • March 5, 2022 3:25 AM

@Clive Robinson

“That is DO NOT assume because KeyMat such as CodeSigning Keys are expired they are “safe” they are not for oh so many reasons, not just Microsoft digging it’s sorry ass out of a hole it dug for it’s self…”

That is a very important point, and personally I don’t think it is having a dig at Microsoft, but instead providing a very real example of an ongoing security problem. Microsoft has made some improvements to the issue, but the fundamentals of the flaw remain the same.

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The more things change the more they stay the same.

Russia’s so-called oligarchs, who once exercised significant influence over President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, are facing economic chaos after the West imposed severe sanctions on Russia over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“As a British citizen I ask you to save Europe from war. As a Russian patriot I plead that you prevent any more young Russian soldiers from dying needlessly. As a citizen of the world I ask you to save the world from annihilation.”

“Today’s negotiations at the Ukraine-Belarus border provide a moment of hope. You can stop this conflict. Please seize the moment and end this war today.”

This news comes as Mikhail Fridman, who was born in western Ukraine, and Oleg Deripaska also condemned Putin’s invasion by calling for peace talks ‘as fast as possible’ between the two countries in an unusual intervention from Russia’s leading business elite.

Mr Deripaska – who is the founder of Russian aluminium giant Rusal in which he still owns a stake via his shares in its parent company En+ Group – used a post on Telegram to called for peace talks to begin ‘as fast as possible’.

The 54-year-old simply said: ‘Peace is very important.’

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said there would be ‘nowhere left to hide’ for the super-rich allies of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10561935/Now-three-oligarchs-including-Evening-Standard-owner-Evgeny-Lebedev-call-end-Ukraine-invasion.html

September 12, 1997

the Russian defense establishment suggest that the Kremlin’s plans for military reform may be accompanied by structural changes in the other “power ministries” too. The removal of Yury Baturin as secretary of the Defense Council, which is personally headed by the Russian president and which supervises the “power ministries,” and the appointment to Baturin’s post of a civilian, State Military Inspector Andrei Kokoshin, can be seen as the beginning of a shakeup in the upper echelons of the Russian security services as a whole. A number of the services may lose their present right to maintain their own troops. That, at least, is the prediction of a number of influential Russian newspapers.

The GRU is Russia’s largest security service. It deploys six times more officers in foreign countries than the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which is the successor of the First Main Directorate of the KGB. Moreover, 25,000 spetsnaz troops are directly subordinated to the GRU, whereas the KGB’s various successor-organizations have been deprived of their own military formations since 1991. Traditionally, the GRU has proved far more effective at collecting intelligence than the SVR, which tends to be occupied with its own political games. This perhaps explains why the GRU has not been subjected to any reform over the last seven years.
https://web.archive.org/web/20061125045521/http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=4&issue_id=217&article_id=2507

The authorities in Belgiam have located three caches of Soviet KGB radio equipment hidden in woods outside Brussels after a tip-off by British secret services.

The tip-off was based on KGB archives smuggled out by the Soviet defector, Vassili Mitrokhin.

It’s unclear when the radio transmitters were hidden; they were found in November but their discovery has only been revealed now.

According to Vassili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist, Soviet spies buried explosives and other equipment across Europe and the United States at the height of the Cold War for sabotage purposes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/447991.stm

The former KGB intelligence service, when it was led by Yevgeny Primakov, penetrated key financial institutions in London, a former MI6 officer tells the Sunday Times. MI6 “uncovered at least one full-time agent of the SVR, the KGB’s successor, working in the London commodities market,” and an undercover agent told MI6 in 1995 “that the SVR had a full-time spy reporting on the activities of the Moscow office of Barclays,” according to the report. “MI6 officers fear the spy may have influenced the bank’s disastrous loss on Russian bonds, said to amount to 250 [million pounds sterling], during the economic crisis last year.”

“MI6 first learned of the extent of Soviet economic espionage operations in the early 1990s,” according to the Sunday Times, when it received intelligence that “senior staff” at the Bank of England, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and other London-based institutions were targeted for penetration by the KGB and its re-named foreign intelligence spinoff, the SVR. The officer who set up the new operations is reported to be Col. Andrei Arsenyev.

“One British businessman allegedly targeted by Moscow is David Reuben, a multimillionaire with extensive business ties to Russia,” the Sunday Times reports. “He trades on the London commodities market which the agent says has been influenced by a full-time SVR agent. Reuben said last week: ‘I’m certain the Russians are spying on me.’ He added that repeated attempts had been made to discredit his business.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20070607020522/http://www.afpc.org/rrm/rrm597.htm

The group, dubbed the “Illegals,” was accused of being tasked by the Russian intelligence agency SVR to enter the United States, assume false identities and become “deep-cover” Americans, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Their goal was to “become sufficiently ‘Americanized’ such that they could gather information about the United States for Russia and can successfully recruit sources who are in, or are able to infiltrate, United States policy-making circles,” according to criminal complaints filed in U.S. federal court.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65R5OU20100628

The indictment says the alleged spies used a number of methods to communicate with the SVR including unique wireless networks to transfer encrypted data. One of the wireless networks was run from a van in New York that on one occasion parked outside a coffee shop where one of the accused , named as Anna Chapman, was sitting. The FBI said it observed as she established a connection with the wireless link in the van and transmitted data. A few weeks later she did the same from a bookshop.

The FBI said it also observed a car with diplomatic plates registered to the Russian government park outside a Washington DC restaurant where another alleged spy who went by the name Mikhail Semenko, who is still being sought by the authorities, used a computer to establish a connection with a wireless signal from the car.

Other information was passed by posting pictures on the internet that had text buried in them as well as long established techniques such as drops and “brush pasts” in local parks.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/29/fbi-breaks-up-alleged-russian-spy-ring-deep-cover

The Double Bluff

Kryuchkov and other high-ranking KGB officials organized a hardline coup in August 1991.

Putin studied law at Leningrad State University, where his tutor was Anatoly Sobchak, later one of the leading reform politicians of the perestroika period.

Yeltsin was warned by the KGB in Moscow he was about to be captured and he escaped.

Boris Yeltsin made Putin director of the Federal Security Service, and shortly thereafter he became secretary of the influential Security Council.

ResearcherZero • March 5, 2022 3:52 AM

…the update also implies that additional wiper attacks have been observed that are not being disclosed for now.

In particular, Microsoft indicates that as of now, “there continues to be a risk” from the threat actor behind the HermeticWiper attacks.

The MSRC update also follows a blog post from Microsoft president Brad Smith on Monday, in which he stated that some recent cyberattacks against civilian targets in Ukraine “raise serious concerns under the Geneva Convention.”
https://venturebeat.com/2022/03/02/microsoft-data-wiper-cyberattacks-continuing-in-ukraine/

ResearcherZero • March 5, 2022 10:40 PM

8 years to react to something that many experts were banging on about for the previous 30 years, seems a little slow to me, but… Lookout it’s a flipping icebreg!

“In countries with populist or autocratic leaders, we often see democracies in decline and a disturbing pattern of attempts to crack down on civil society, limit press freedom, and weaken the independence of the judiciary. Instead of tackling crony capitalism, those leaders usually install even worse forms of corrupt systems,”

“Only where there is freedom of expression, transparency in all political processes and strong democratic institutions, can civil society and the media hold those in power to account and corruption be fought successfully.”

2016 showed that around the world systemic corruption and social inequality reinforce each other, leading to popular disenchantment with political establishments and providing a fertile ground for the rise of populist politicians.

This year more countries declined in the index than improved, showing the need for urgent action.
https://www.transparency.org/en/press/corruption-perceptions-index-2016-vicious-circle-of-corruption-and-inequali

More than eight-in-ten Americans (84%) believe it is possible to improve the level of confidence people have in the government.

Their written responses about how to make headway on trust problems urge a variety of political reforms, starting with more disclosure of what the government is doing, as well as term limits and restrictions on the role of money in politics.

Some 15% of those who answered this question point to a need for better political leadership, including greater honesty and cooperation among those in the political class.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/22/key-findings-about-americans-declining-trust-in-government-and-each-other/

ResearcherZero • March 7, 2022 12:04 AM

Some sort of progress on directed energy attacks and microwave eavesdropping, but will it lead to reports that do not remain classified for 40 years? Will lawmakers be briefed? And why even take covert surveillance seriously in the first place?

The NDAA directs the president to designate a senior official as “anomalous health incidents interagency coordinator,” overseeing relevant efforts across the government…
https://www.aip.org/fyi/2021/congress-passes-national-defense-authorization-act-fiscal-year-2022

“they plan to investigate the pattern of events and work with the CIA to identify who may be behind them.”
https://www.vox.com/2021/5/1/22414235/senate-intelligence-committee-havana-syndrome-warner-rubio

Lawmakers were not briefed on the department’s medical tests for directed-energy exposure until early 2021, POLITICO previously reported, even though State was administering those exams to diplomats as early as 2018.

A State Department spokesperson declined to discuss the details of Lenzi’s specific case, citing privacy concerns.

“The safety of our personnel is our highest priority,” the spokesperson added. “We take every report we receive extremely seriously, and we are doing everything we can to ensure affected individuals get the best care and treatment.”

The State Department’s apparent understanding in 2018 that Lenzi’s symptoms could have been caused by directed energy came two years before a National Academy of Sciences report declassified and published in 2020 concluded that “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy” was the likely source of the ailments. The number of suspected attacks on diplomats and CIA officers has risen substantially in the past year and have been reported on every continent except Antarctica.

Medical experts and intelligence officials have said publicly and told Congress in the past year that the symptoms likely stem from a directed-energy attack on the individual or an effort by a hostile foreign government seeking to steal data from the target’s devices.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/25/state-department-2018-directed-energy-exposure-517055

“I will not try to confirm whether they are the victims of ‘an acoustic attack,’ paranoia, or Russophobia. That’s a question for the doctors.” – Maria Zakharova

The federal agency that handles whistleblower claims previously found “a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” in the case of Lenzi and his claims of retaliation, according to an April 2020 Office of Special Counsel memo. That retaliation probe is ongoing. A separate document shows that just last month, Lenzi’s administrative leave — which he relies on to attend therapy sessions and participate in medical studies — was revoked without explanation.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017c-b7cd-d8e1-a57c-fffd2c6d0000

May 30, 1979
The Soviet Union has stopped bombarding the American Embassy with microwaves, an embassy spokesman said today.

For the last three and a half years, strong beams have been aimed at the embassy’s upper floors from transmitters east and south of the 10‐story structure.

Other microwave sources in the area have been detected for years but were not considered comparable to the searchlight‐like beams aimed at the embassy building.

American officials theorized that the microwaves could have been intended to jam American electronic‐intelligence equipment or to trigger electronic monitor devices concealed in the embassy.
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/05/30/archives/soviet-halts-microwaves-aimed-at-us-embassy.html

The Soviet Union bombarded the American Embassy in Moscow with microwaves in the 1970s and ’80s.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/business/economy/havana-syndrome-microwave-attack.html

“I wish I was shot. I wish it had been an open wound, because then you have something that is visible and treatable and instead this is an invisible wound,” he said. “It takes you off the battlefield, it incapacitates you, it doesn’t kill you … ultimately it’s a pretty brilliant terror weapon.”

Briefers pointed to Russia as a likely culprit, the people told POLITICO, but didn’t have a smoking gun, citing difficulties in attributing the attacks.

The official notice, which was obtained by POLITICO, described the briefing as urgent and said it was centered on an “emerging threat.”

The facilities in these regions are not secure or “hardened in any real way,” one of the people said. “That makes them very, very vulnerable.”

Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican on the Armed Services Committee, did not comment on any briefings but said the U.S. government isn’t doing enough to protect personnel from directed-energy attacks.

“It came up a lot on our task force last year as a major issue that we have done very little to address,” he told POLITICO. “We have failed to take it seriously as a threat.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/22/troops-directed-energy-attacks-484246

ResearcherZero • March 7, 2022 1:11 AM

People are just being fed a pure stream of propaganda in Russia now by the Putin’s government.

Putin signed a law to collect money from the bank accounts of officials in the event that the amount of receipts exceeds income for three years.

The bank accounts of civil servants, as well as members of their families, including minor children, will be checked by the prosecutor’s office.

–

“RFE/RL refuses to censor our content at this critical moment for our Russian audiences. They deserve the truth and we will continue to provide them with factual information about their government’s actions and the consequences that they must now endure.”
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-rferl-bbc-facebook-google-twitter-blocked/31735597.html

block bypass
https://d3olbu2cl74039.cloudfront.net/block

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“In recent years, there’s been a tendency to outsource a lot of this work due to the fact that private companies have specialized knowledge and they are often better able to develop and deploy certain types of space of technology,” says Ortega, adding that many space objects are now called “dual-use.” “That means that one satellite can be used at the same time for military purposes, but also for civilian everyday things,”
https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-russia-satellites/

Security intelligence analysts are charged with the task to look into different data streams in order to quickly identify risks related to people.
https://pentestmag.com/overview-of-osint-use-for-kyc-aml-and-crime-investigations/

Crawling and extracting open and valuable intelligence from public records.
https://osint.tools/

ResearcherZero • March 7, 2022 4:20 AM

@Winter

He’s not too happy about it either.

“We don’t believe he has a realistic understanding of what’s going on.”

Putin is confused, frustrated, and directing bursts of anger at people in his inner circle.
https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/frustrated-putin-may-order-escalation-violence-ukraine-us-officials-sa-rcna18026

“What we fear the most: The higher ups operate on the rule of covering old problems with new problems. For many of these reasons Donbass was started in 2014, we needed a way to distract the West from the topic of the Russian Spring in Crimea. Because of this, Donbass was meant to draw all attention and become the main topic of the incursion.”

“I don’t know who invented the “Ukrainian blitzkrieg”. If we were given real information then we at the very least would indicate that the plan initially is questionable, that much of it needs to be rechecked. A lot of it. Now we’ve crawled neck deep into shit, and no one knows what to do.”
https://noteplan.co/n/3D073DDB-CB0F-4ABC-BC93-01A94141445B

“These are hoaxes,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, in the first official reaction to suggestions that Russia could institute martial law. “These are nothing but hoaxes published on social networks, which citizens send to one another. One should be very careful about information and not to fall victim to rumours and fakes.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/03/kremlin-denies-planning-to-institute-martial-law-in-russia

Putin fired the ‘Ukrainian blitzkrieg’ planner only three days after the invasion begun.

ResearcherZero • March 7, 2022 6:44 AM

@Winter

We’ll all starve together, and that’s probably not a very good game plan from Putin. MRE’s aren’t that flash, and neither is most tinned food.

14 killings on British soil may, in fact, have been Russian FSB assassinations

“So even when intelligence strongly pointed to an assassination, police and intelligence sources said, there was often too little evidence to make a case stand up in court. In such instances, they said it could be easier to pronounce a death unsuspicious than to stoke diplomatic tensions and public alarm over an accusation of political assassination that probably wouldn’t stick.”

Reading this highly detailed expose that deals with everything from a 2006 Russian law giving FSB agents “a licence to kill enemies of the state abroad” to turf wars that seem to be taking place between American and British intelligence and even within both Scotland Yard and MI6
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/heidiblake/from-russia-with-blood-14-suspected-hits-on-british-soil

Theresa May, then Home Secretary, personally intervened to delay the public inquiry into Litvinenko’s death, citing the need to protect “international relations” with Russia.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3859440-Theresa-May-Letter-on-Litvenenko-Inquiry.html#document/p4/a356507

And in the Perepilichnyy case, her government has withheld sensitive evidence from the inquest on “national security” grounds.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3859448-Perepilichny-PII-Judgement.html#document/p8/a356508

The same withholding of evidence from coroners has also happened “quite a lot” in Australia, because it’s “diplomatically easier” and they are “scared of angering Russia, who are known to be quite ruthless”.

weak excuse if you ask me… 😡

ResearcherZero • March 9, 2022 1:45 AM

at least three cases of encephalitis — dangerous swelling of the brain — recorded in Melbourne are suspected to be JEV, meaning it has been transmitted from pigs to humans in that state, indicating the virus has travelled the length of the east coast undetected.

JEV is spread through an opportunistic mosquito called Culex annulirostris, which feeds on a range of animals, including birds, pigs and humans.

“There is precedent — in the past a similar virus, Murray Valley encephalitis, saw widespread outbreaks in 1974 and 2011,”

“Obviously there were big floods in those years, but it’s not the floods themselves, the floods and the virus are both symptoms of the fact that those years saw months of very wet conditions, which is conducive to mosquitoes spreading the virus.”

“Measures to prevent mosquito bites include regularly applying insect repellent containing diethyltoluamide (DEET), picaridin, or oil of lemon eucalyptus; wearing loose, light-coloured clothing to cover up arms, legs and feet; and using other insecticide-based mosquito control devices where possible when outside.”

“Vaccinate the people most at risk — those people who work in and around piggeries, that would certainly help,”

“In Asia there are very good vaccines for animals [against JEV] as well, but they’re not licensed in Australia at the moment.

“But clearly vaccinating the pig herd would remove that vector for transmission.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/qld-floods-raise-japanese-encephalitis-risk-with-cases-suspected-in-victoria-20220303-p5a1aw.html

health authorities are trying to contain recent outbreaks in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, with cases confirmed in animals in at least 21 piggeries in all of those states.

The highest number of confirmed cases in humans is in Victoria, with seven infections picked up locally.

In South Australia, authorities have confirmed four cases, with another six suspected infections, including one that led to the death of a man.

“All 10 people under investigation required hospitalisation, with seven people currently still in hospital, and one person sadly passing away,”

University of Queensland virologist Jody Peters said weather conditions associated with La Niña had created “excellent environmental conditions” for the virus to thrive.

“It breeds up very, very rapidly during flooding events,” she said.

She said flooding in Australia’s north had triggered the migration of birds further south which were part of the “cycle of Japanese encephalitis”.

“Waterbirds in particular, they will become infected, they develop a lot of virus in their bloodstream and then they subsequently infect another mosquito and that drives this transmission cycle,” Dr Peters said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-09/health-authorities-on-alert-over-japanese-encephalitis-virus/100894208

The dangers of climate change are mounting so rapidly that they could soon overwhelm the ability of both nature and humanity to adapt.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/climate/climate-change-ipcc-report.html

In Brisbane, the city’s mayor, Adrian Schrinner, said the floods had generated a year’s worth of landfill.

Councils hit by floods were worried piles of rubbish could become breeding grounds for mosquitoes and attract rats and mice.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/09/qld-and-nsw-floods-create-mountains-of-waste-and-spark-environmental-and-vermin-fears

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s office has banned media filming him visiting flood-affected homes in Lismore as he tours devastated areas of northern New South Wales.

Mr Morrison is touring the region on Wednesday when he announced his intention to declare a national emergency amid the clean-up after the natural disaster.
https://7news.com.au/news/nsw/prime-minister-bans-media-filming-him-visiting-flood-hit-homes-in-lismore-during-tour-c-5987447

Asked about the effect of climate change, Mr Morrison said it was “an obvious fact” that “Australia is getting hard to live in”.
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/prime-minister-scott-morrison-bans-media-from-visit-to-floodaffected-nsw/news-story/b66fc7cf80a0b68eee029c94eea20e05

The Australia Institute’s climate and energy program director Richie Merzian said the situation had been exacerbated in Australia because no comprehensive national risk assessment or adaptation plan had been undertaken.
https://fotogink.com/nsw-floods-renew-climate-change-debate-over-where-we-should-live/

“no comprehensive national risk assessment” – it’s been done, but remains classified. Encephalitis is one the waterborne disease risks that was identified. Flooding should ease by the end of the week.

ResearcherZero • March 9, 2022 2:47 AM

Published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, the study suggests that unaware buyers and inadequate disclosure laws drive up financial risks that could destabilize the real estate market. The threat is likely to grow as climate change drives more frequent extreme weather.

Since 2000, overall flood damages have quadrupled in the U.S.

More frequent extreme weather could magnify the trend. In the next 30 years, flood damages to U.S. homes are projected to rise more than 60 percent, from $20 billion to nearly $32.2 billion a year, according to nonprofit research group First Street Foundation.

“Improving how we communicate about flooding is an important step in the right direction.”

“We like to think that markets work efficiently and incorporate all known information about risk,” said Burke. “But here we find clear evidence, in an incredibly valuable market, that the market is underpricing flood risk.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the results suggest that a buyer’s flood risk awareness shapes the value they perceive in a property. This awareness is likely informed by a combination of disclosure laws and the extent of flood risk within the community measured by the percentage of homes located in floodplains.
https://news.stanford.edu/2021/04/26/flood-risks-impact-home-values/

…The difficulty and cost associated with delayed action towards meeting a temperature target are likely to increase over time, and that rate of increase has the potential to be strongly nonlinear. In the framework considered here, the 1.5 degree temperature target is already in this regime and total costs of meeting the target are considerably greater (and less certain) than they would have been if stronger past mitigation action had occurred.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66275-4

Climate change impacts can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities associated with affordable housing, household wealth and savings, economic mobility, education attainment, public health, transportation accessibility, and social capital and community institutions.
https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/climate-equity-impacts-in-finance.html

…the treasury office of the United Kingdom estimated that unless we adapt, global warming could eventually subtract as much as 20 percent of the gross domestic product from the world economy.

…a major investment sector of the near future will be climate-change adaptation.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/04/global-warming-who-loses-and-who-wins/305698/

Herrington’s study concluded that society has about another decade to change courses and avoid collapse by investing in sustainable technologies and equitable human development.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/climate-change/563497-mit-predicted-society-would-collapse-by-2040

The authors say that it will require a total transformation of the world economy to avert damages that will cost $54 trillion, and greenhouse emissions must be reduced by 45 percent by 2030. Most importantly, they argued, the world must transition fully away from burning coal: “There is no way to mitigate climate change without getting rid of coal,”
https://www.vogue.com/article/un-climate-change-report-crisis-by-2040

Models that ignore non-financial factors and include only financial costs can produce results that don’t align with real-world decision-making, leading to ill-informed policy decisions.
https://theconversation.com/climate-policy-creates-winners-and-losers-and-governments-need-to-choose-the-best-models-to-weigh-the-outcomes-170244

The TCFD suggests that an organization should disclose its transition plan if it has identified material transition risk, including if it: i) operates in a jurisdiction with an emissions reduction commitment, ii) has made an emissions reduction commitment, or iii) has to meet emissions reduction expectations from stakeholders, especially investors and lenders.
https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/climate-related-metrics.html

ResearcherZero • March 9, 2022 2:58 AM

@Winter

After reading all of that stuff, it appears you were right all along regarding Putin’s game plan.

I also read these:

https://www.reversemode.com/2022/03/satcom-terminals-under-attack-in-europe.html

Armis has discovered a set of three critical zero-day vulnerabilities in APC Smart-UPS devices that can allow remote attackers to take over Smart-UPS devices and carry out extreme attacks targeting both physical devices and IT assets. Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) devices provide emergency backup power for mission-critical assets and can be found in data centers, industrial facilities, hospitals and more.
https://www.armis.com/research/tlstorm/

“In addition, the actors reportedly scheduled disconnects for server Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS) via the UPS remote management interface. The team assesses that these actions were done in an attempt to interfere with expected restoration efforts.”
https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ics/alerts/IR-ALERT-H-16-056-01

The number of vulnerabilities reported in 2021 increased 52% to nearly 1,440, compared with the previous year, and nearly two-thirds of the discovered security issues could be exploited remotely.
https://security.claroty.com/biannual-ics-risk-vulnerability-report-2h-2021

“Just one of these statistics is concerning enough – but the combination points to a sincere need for the industry to better practice what it preaches,”

35 multinational cybersecurity companies and their more than 350 subsidiaries hosted over 200,000 exposed assets. These assets included databases, remote access sites, and cloud services.

Reposify’s analysis showed that 86% of these companies have at least one exposed remote access service, 80% expose network assets, and 63% expose back office internal networks. Just over half of the cybersecurity firms have at least one exposed database.
https://go.reposify.com/hubfs/Reposify_Cybersecurity_Report_2022.pdf

ResearcherZero • March 9, 2022 4:10 AM

Australia declares flooding a National Disaster

The Treasurer and other federal leaders have estimated the recovery cost in the billions. In Lismore, the entire town was wiped out forcing 2,000 homes and businesses to be deemed unlivable.

1800 homes destroyed. 700 trucks a day could take up to a month to clear damaged possessions. (3 ton a truck)

“The last flood that came in was about 50 centimetres high, so I was expecting that maybe it would be like 1.5 metres at worst but it was at least 2.8 metres in at 7am this morning,” she told The Australian Financial Review.

“There were cars submerged and floating past my house.”
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/death-toll-rises-as-floods-near-peak-20220228-p5a06n

The declaration means flood victims won’t have to provide identification documents to receive support payment and in some circumstances the federal government can act independently in areas where the state governments haven’t requested help.

Floodwaters peaked in Brisbane, the Queensland capital and Australia’s third-most populous city, on Feb. 28 after it was inundated by 80% of its usual annual rainfall in the previous three days.

More than 20,000 homes and businesses had been flooded in southeast Queensland and 13 people died.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/australia-declare-east-coast-floods-national-emergency-83335399

The Wilsons River reached levels of 14.37m on Monday afternoon, more than two metres higher than its previous record set more than 50 years ago when the river hit a depth of 12.27m in 1954.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10559243/amp/Lismore-floods-Pictures-K-Mart-Caltex-petrol-station-completely-water-northern-NSW.html