7 mai 2024 | International, Terrestre
How DC became obsessed with a potential 2027 Chinese invasion of Taiwan
Some in defense circles say the U.S. needs to prepare for Beijing's invasion of Taiwan in 2027. China experts say it isn’t a deadline.
14 septembre 2018 | International, C4ISR
Really old computer viruses are still infecting new machines
By: Justin Lynch
The biggest cyber threats governments and businesses face may not be the cutting edge hack from China, but a 10-year-old virus that infects a little-used computer.
Some of the most well-known viruses from the past decade are still infecting machines despite their well-documented nature, according to cyber research firms. Some viruses, such as WannaCry and Conficker, are still spreading, Sean Sullivan, a security adviser at F-Secure told Fifth Domain.
“It costs hackers nothing to keep using them,” Sullivan said.
These known vulnerabilities are still effective because older machines do not receive patches for updates, which can then infect an entire network. Hackers often bundle known hacks together because it increases their success rate with no downside, Sullivan said.
“Nothing is going to be 100 percent patched across organizations,” Sullivan, said. He described a network administrator's role as “triage.”
The 2017 WannaCry hack infected users in more than 150 countries and had an economic impact of anywhere from $4 billion to $8 billion. Although progress has been made to patch computers, WannaCry is still a top malware threat for customers, F-Stream said in a September report.
The Conficker hack targeted Windows systems and was first launched in 2008. It is reported to have cost as much as $9 billion in damage.
But much work remains. More than two-billion devices have not been patched to defend against BlueBorne, a Bluetooth vulnerability that allows an attacker to take over devices, according to the cyber protection company Armis. The devices are still vulnerable because they have not been updated or because an update does not exist, according to the company.
“Whether they're brought in by employees and contractors, or by guests using enterprise networks for temporary connectivity, these devices can expose enterprises to significant risks,” wrote Ben Seri, the vice president of research at Armis.
A previous version of this article said that two million devices have not been patched to defend against BlueBorne. It is two billion.
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B-21 Avionics Testbed Aircraft Now Operating, USAF Official Says
Steve Trimble The U.S. Air Force has commissioned a flying testbed aircraft to test the avionics system and software for the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber, a senior official said on Aug. 13. The first B-21 test aircraft is still being assembled in Palmdale, California, but the flying testbed allows the stealth bomber program to “buydown risk,” said Randall Walden, director of the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office, which is managing the program. “We have a flight test aircraft that we've been hosting some of these subsystems on,” Walden said. “We're doing it kind of in a parallel approach, working out some of the bugs with the software as well as the subsystems.” Walden, speaking to the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute, did not identify the flying testbed, but his remarks come two months after the appearance of a green Boeing 737 owned by the Air Force with registration N712JM. The Lockheed Martin F-35 program also used a 737 to check out avionics and mission systems before test flights of the stealth fighter started in 2006. “When you can buydown risk with subsystems on even another platform, no matter what it is like you get into the air and use some of the software and work those bugs out it goes a long way,” Walden said. The Air Force expects to field the B-21 in the mid-2020s, about a decade after awarding the engineering and manufacturing development contract to Northrop in 2015. The development program remains on track, but Walden is eager to begin testing as soon as possible. “All of the tough critical designs, all of the hard engineering, is behind us,” Walden said. “I know we're not going to be immune from design flaws. We're going to have to work through those, and we're doing some of that today. I want to find out what those design deficiencies are as fast as I can to get on with the solution.” https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/b-21-avionics-testbed-aircraft-now-operating-usaf-official-says