It's 5:05! Daily cybersecurity and open source briefing

It's April 5th, 2024, and time for your weekly cybersecurity and open-source news updates. We have news updates from Trac Bannon in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, Julie Chatman in Washington, DC, Katy Craig in San Diego, California, Edwin Kwan in Sydney, Australia, and Olimpiu Pop in Transylvania, Romania. We'll start with Julie ChatmanResources and 300+ episodes, all free, all ungated:https://505updates.com/

It's March 15th, 2024, and time for Point of View Friday, where we cover a single topic from multiple perspectives. Today's point of discussion is around the recent Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency hack, and it's suspected perpetrators and implications. We have perspectives from Julie Chatman in Washington, D.C., Katy Craig in San Diego, California, Trac Bannon in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, and Olimpiu Pop from Transylvania, Romania. We also have a couple of interviews from last month's, AFCEA cybersecurity conference held in San Diego, California.We'll start with Katy Craig.Resources and 300+ episodes, all free, all ungated:https://505updates.com/

It's March 1st, 2024 and time for Point of View Friday, where we cover a single topic from multiple perspectives. Today's point of discussion is around the anticipation of advancements in quantum computing and the massive overhauls of technology taking place. We have perspectives from Trac Bannon in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, Olimpiu Pop from Transylvania, Romania, and Katy Craig in San Diego, California. We'll start with Trac Bannon.Resources and 300+ episodes, all free, all ungated:https://505updates.com/

It's February 16th, 2024 and time for Point of View Friday, where we cover a single topic from multiple perspectives. Today's point of discussion is the Securities and Exchange Commission's change in cybersecurity disclosure rules. We have perspectives today from Trac Bannon in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, Olimpiu Pop from Transylvania, Romania, and Katy Craig in San Diego, California. We'll start with Trac Bannon Resources and 300+ episodes, all free, all ungated:https://505updates.com/

It's January 12th, 2024, and time for Point of View Friday, where we cover a single topic from multiple perspectives. Today's point of discussion is what does the future look like for AI and cyber legislation? We have perspectives from Edwin Kwan in Sydney, Australia, Trac Bannon and Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, Olympia Pop from Transylvania, Romania. We'll begin with Shannon Lietz in San Diego, California on the Win, Lose or Draw when considering cyber legislation. Resources and 300+ episodes, all free, all ungated:https://505updates.com/

Free, ungated access to all 300+ episodes of “It’s 5:05!” on your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/505-updates. You’re welcome to 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 if your followers will find this of value.The stories we’re covering today.Marcel Brown: December 31st, 1999. The world waits in anticipation of the year 2000 and the potential disasters that might be brought about by the Y2K bug. Just for fun, I set up my home with a remote control to turn off all the lights in my house and the TV our friends would be watching at our New Year's Eve party. Seconds after midnight, I pushed the remote control in my pocket, and everything went out. There were definitely a few people in my house that night who thought the apocalypse had come.Edwin Kwan: One of the features of Chrome Safety Check is that it will check if any saved passwords have been compromised. In addition, users will receive alerts in the Chrome menu about flagged dangerous extensions, outdated Chrome versions, or disabled safe browsing.Shannon Lietz: For the last couple of years, the EU has been talking about how it might address some of the cybersecurity issues that are plaguing its economy. As part of this, addressing the 189 pages of a potential act to come, it's hard to look at it and be both excited and petrified at the same time. There's lots to think about. Olimpiu Pop: In 2023, the cyber warfare aspect of the Ukraine war provided concrete examples of both resilience and evolving nature of cyber threats. Ukrainian cyber defenses, although not unbreakable, effectively countered a variety of Russian cyber attacks

Free, ungated access to all 300+ episodes of “It’s 5:05!” on your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/505-updates. You’re welcome to 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 if your followers will find this of value.The stories we’re covering today.Marcel Brown: December 27th, 1968. Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first manned orbit of the moon. When the spacecraft hit the water, the parachutes dragged it over and left it upside down. Because they were being buffeted by 10 foot swells, astronaut Frank Borman actually got sick and vomited. Welcome back to Earth, Frank.Edwin Kwan: A critical remote code execution vulnerability in the Apache Struts 2 framework is reportedly being ignored by developers, leaving approximately 80 percent of recent Strut downloads exposed to the flaw. The severity of the vulnerability, rated as 9. 8 out of 10 in CVSS, arises from a logic bug in the File Upload feature.Hillary Coover: Quantum computers operate on subatomic particle properties, enabling them to perform complex calculations and process information at unparalleled speeds compared to today's computers. However, a current challenge is the instability of qubits, the key processing units in quantum computers, which limits their ability to decrypt substantial amounts of data.Olimpiu Pop: In 2023, the European Union made significant strides in AI legislation with the introduction of the EU AI Act. This groundbreaking legislation, agreed upon on December 9, 2023, is the world's first dedicated law on AI and sets a global precedent.

Free, ungated access to all 300+ episodes of “It’s 5:05!” on your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/505-updates. You’re welcome to 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 if your followers will find this of value.The stories we’re covering today.Marcel Brown: December 22nd, 1882. Edward Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison, has walnut sized bulbs made specifically for him to wire his Christmas tree with electric light. The eighty red, white, and blue bulbs formed the first set of electric Christmas tree lights in history.Edwin Kwan: A recently discovered SMTP smuggling technique is allowing cyber attackers to sidestep email security protocols, posing a significant threat to organizations. The techniques exploit zero-day flaws in messaging servers, allowing attackers to send malicious emails with fake sender addresses.Hillary Coover: In an effort to combat cybercrime, U. S. government researchers are embarking on a 30 month project to investigate whether computer code used in cyberattacks can reveal clues about the hackers behind them.Katy Craig: The SEC's legal action against the former CISO of SolarWinds is a justified step towards greater accountability in corporate cybersecurity. It highlights the need for individuals in charge to diligently comply with federal safeguards and rules and to report incidents.Trac Bannon: The charges against Joe Sullivan and Timothy Brown have dramatic ramifications for industry. There is the increased scrutiny of CSOs and CISOs. The precedent is set for personal accountability for both cybersecurity practices and disclosures. This means corporate security officers face scrutiny and legal responsibilities similar to CFOs and their responsibility for financial disclosures.Olimpiu Pop: Whether we like it or not, we are at war. The CISO should stop preaching, and transform their slides into actions . Actions, translatable into automated tools that cannot be circumvented or ignored. More than that, as CISO, you should be the north star in terms of ethical conduct.

Free, ungated access to all 295+ episodes of “It’s 5:05!” on your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/505-updates. You’re welcome to 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 if your followers will find this of value.The stories we’re covering today.Marcel Brown: December 20th, 1996. In a surprise move at the time, Apple Computer announces their intention to purchase Steve Jobs' company, NeXT, and bring Steve Jobs on board as an advisor to CEO Gil Amelio. Along with the leadership of future CEO Steve Jobs, the resurgence of Apple in the 2000s, and the emergence of the new world of technology can be traced back to this major event in technology history. Hillary Coover: In Maine's data privacy debate, L.L. Bean has surprisingly aligned with global tech giants, highlighting the power of local national business alliances in shaping legislation. This unusual alliance between a family-owned retailer and tech giants illustrates the complexity of the national data privacy law debate, primarily occurring at the state level.Edwin Kwan: Ubiquiti users were reporting last week that they were seeing other people's notification and had access to their devices. The incident was first reported on Reddit, where a user received a notification from UniFi ProTech, including an image from someone else's security camera.Katy Craig: Today we're discussing a significant cyber security incident. Xfinity has recently experienced a major data breach, potentially impacting around 36 million customers . Compromised data includes usernames, hashed passwords, the last four digits of social security numbers, security questions, birthdates, and contact details.

Free, ungated access to all 295+ episodes of “It’s 5:05!” on your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/505-updates. You’re welcome to 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 if your followers will find this of value.The stories we’re covering today.Marcel Brown: December 17th, 1903. Orville and Wilbur Wright make their famous first controlled and sustained flights with a heavier than air, powered aircraft. Orville made the very first flight, which lasted about 12 seconds. Edwin Kwan: It's been almost three years since the critical Log4j vulnerability was disclosed. Despite patches being available shortly after vulnerability disclosure, many organizations persistently use vulnerable versions. There are still approximately 38% of applications using vulnerable versions of the Apache Log4j library. Hillary Coover: China raised concerns about the potential compromise of sensitive data, particularly in crucial sectors like the military, due to the use of foreign geographic information software. The Ministry of State Security has urged security departments to conduct thorough investigations to prevent further breaches. Katy Craig: A marketing company, CMG Local Solutions, recently claimed it could access people's private conversations through their device microphones for targeted advertising. This claim raises some serious red flags.

Free, ungated access to all 295+ episodes of “It’s 5:05!” on your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/505-updates. You’re welcome to 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 if your followers will find this of value.The stories we’re covering today.Marcel Brown: December 16, 2003. The CAN SPAM Act of 2003 is signed into United States law. Passed in an attempt to control the growing deluge of junk email, the law's effectiveness is dubious at best. Especially considering political spam is exempt from the law.Edwin Kwan: Apple will soon be introducing a stolen device protection feature, which is aimed at enhancing security if an iPhone is stolen, particularly in scenarios where thieves obtain the device passcode. Katy Craig: Today, we're diving into a significant milestone in AI regulation: the European Union's recent passing of the AI Act. This legislation is set to shape how AI is used across industries, but it also raises questions about potential, unintended consequences. Trac Bannon: The EU is taking the global lead when it comes to AI governance. In the US, there are many discussions and hearings happening about AI policy at different levels of the government, but nothing cohesive and nothing comprehensive. Olimpiu Pop: The EU AI Act, with all its ups and downs, is the first one in the world, and it will be the baseline. Can the slow legislative apparatus keep pace with the lightning speed of AI tech space?Shannon Lietz: It's an interesting time to be looking at AI, using AI, and trying to make sense of what it could mean for you. The question is, which use cases is it most well suited for? And are the producers of AI capabilities such as OpenAI and its competitors actually looking at which use cases should be allowed? Which ones are allowed to be adopted?

Free, ungated access to all 290+ episodes of “It’s 5:05!” on your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/505-updates. You’re welcome to 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 if your followers will find this of value.The stories we’re covering today.Marcel Brown: December 16, 2016. After a long delay, Apple finally releases their new wireless earbuds, the Apple AirPods. Within two years, they became Apple's most popular accessory, and today are some of the most popular and well recognized earbuds in the market. Hillary Coover: A covert campaign dating back to May 2022 is distorting conversations about Taiwan's upcoming elections. The Graphika report exposes hundreds of fake social media accounts on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. While the perpetrators remain unidentified, the operation favored a pro-China political party in Taiwan, while criticizing its main rival.Katy Craig: Two years after the infamous Log4j vulnerability came to light, North Korean hackers are still exploiting this flaw in widespread cyberattacks. These attacks fall under the wide-reaching activities of the Lazarus umbrella, a term for the various North Korean government hacking operations.Edwin Kwan: Meta has announced the rollout of default end-to-end encryption for personal messages and calls on Messenger and Facebook. The rollout will take several months to complete globally, prompting users to set up recovery methods when their chats are upgraded.

Free, ungated access to all 290+ episodes of “It’s 5:05!” on your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/505-updates. You’re welcome to 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 if your followers will find this of value.The stories we’re covering today.Marcel Brown: December 11th, 2008. Google releases the first stable, public version of their new web browser, Chrome. By 2013, Chrome had bypassed Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox to become the most popular web browser in the world, and is still considered so today.Edwin Kwan: Atlassian has issued an email warning customers of four critical vulnerabilities, each rated 9.0 or higher. Confluence, Jira, and Bitbucket servers, as well as companion apps for macOS are affected. Hillary Coover: Every piece of content you put online is at risk of being manipulated. Microsoft's recent cybersecurity research revealed that Russian propagandists employed a deceptive strategy to manipulate at least seven Western celebrities, including Elijah Wood and Priscilla Presley.Mark Miller: Well, that was a real train wreck, wasn't it? It looks as if Gemini's launch video jumped the shark. Let's take a step back as VP of research Oreo Venules responds by getting called out for faking the video.