 China fears that once the coronavirus pandemic has passed, Britain will reconsider allowing Huawei to help operate its 5G telecommunications network. The top line: Huawei's access is crucial for China's influence and its ability to conduct espionage. But Beijing's coronavirus lies have fueled British concerns about entrusting Huawei with critical infrastructure. Which explains, then, why Huawei's vice president, Victor Zhang, has just published an open letter urging Britain to stick by its original decision. Fittingly, Zhang's opening and closing sentences carry the Chinese government's favorite propaganda line of the moment: that it is "only by working together" that we can beat the coronavirus. Of course, the "working together" narrative isn't actually about encouraging global cooperation, but rather about discouraging any criticism of China as some kind of attack on humanity. Zhang also laments the "groundless criticism from some about Huawei’s involvement in the U.K.’s 5G rollout ... without presenting any evidence." Seeing as how Huawei is a corporate agent of the Chinese Communist Party, and that its software is designed to provide deniable signal intercept-interact capabilities, Zhang's lamentations ring somewhat hollow here. Regardless, the Huawei executive has good reason to be concerned. In January, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative government authorized Huawei to build out noncritical areas of Britain's 5G network. That decision reflected a U.K. Joint Intelligence Committee assessment that limited Huawei 5G access was compatible with British security. But according to The Guardian, the U.K. intelligence community is now pushing for increased restrictions on Chinese access to cutting edge research. First, China's deception over the original coronavirus outbreak in Hubei province isn't the key motive for the shifting U.K. attitude here. Instead, this harder line reflects Joint Intelligence Committee assessments (supported by U.S. intelligence sharing) that Chinese intellectual property theft poses an increasingly unacceptable threat to priority British security and economic interests. This is largely down to Chinese cyber-espionage activities and the deployment of Chinese Ministry of State Security and People's Liberation Army intelligence officers and agents to infiltrate British companies and research institutions. Learn lots more by signing onto OUR FORUM.  Throughout the 1990s, Microsoft developers were in a race of one-upmanship to produce the most elaborate secret “Easter eggs.” These included games of pinball, racing, and even flight simulators, all hidden within Office and Windows. Let’s take a look back at some of the best. “Easter eggs” are developer credits, silly features, or inside jokes hidden in software. Because you can only access these through a series of arcane steps resembling an Easter egg hunt, that’s how they got their name. Easter eggs were a sly, fun way for authors to secretly immortalize themselves in their work, even if individual programmer credits were discouraged for the sake of company unity. Microsoft’s history with software Easter eggs began as far back as the Commodore PET BASIC in the 1970s. Over the decades, it grew dramatically, continuing through MS-DOS and reaching peak complexity during the late ’90s in Microsoft Office applications. Microsoft Management officially put the kibosh on the practice in the early ’00s, citing security and customer trust concerns. For a while there, however, the eggs were on a roll—and they got pretty wild! In the ’90s, Excel attracted a large share of elaborate Easter eggs. For example, in Excel ’95, if you follow a series of complex steps, a window called the “Hall of Tortured Souls” appears. In this apparent reference to Doom, you can actually roam a 3D, first-person environment. After crossing a zigzag bridge, you discover a room with the names of Excel ’95’s developers and a low-resolution photo of the team. During the development of Windows 3.1, one of the programmers carried around a stuffed teddy bear. It became an inside joke and unofficial mascot for the operating system. When the team hid developer credits in the Program Manager of Windows 3.1, the bear naturally made an appearance. The Easter egg normally shows a man in a yellow suit next to a scrolling list of the developers’ internal email system names. If you perform the trick repeatedly, though, you might see the bear’s head in the yellow suit instead. Once word got out about the hidden “flight simulator” Easter egg in Excel ’97, it spread quickly in the press because it sounds so sensationally weird. In truth, though, it’s not exactly a flight simulator in the sense of gauges and airplane controls. Rather, it’s more of a surreal 3D, first-person flying experience over a purple landscape. If you fly around enough, you find a black monolith with the scrolling names of Excel ’97’s developers on it. See many of these wild and interesting Easter Eggs on OUR FORUM.
 Security researchers have discovered an emerging threat that they fear could be nearly unstoppable. This growing botnet has already managed to enslave nearly 20,000 computers. It is known as DDG was first discovered in early 2018 by the network security experts at China-based Netlab 360. Back then the nascent botnet had control of just over 4,000 so-called zombies and used them to mine the Monero cryptocurrency. Much has changed since then. Today’s incarnation of DDG isn’t just five times larger. It’s also much more sophisticated. One of its distinguishing features is its command and control system. Most botnets are designed around a client/server model. Infected machines listen for instructions from the servers and then carry out their orders. DDG has a built-in Plan B, however: a proprietary peer-to-peer network. If the zombies can’t contact the servers, they automatically switch over to P2P channels to keep the operation running — exchanging payloads and instructions as if nothing had happened. They even utilize a built-in proxy system to obfuscate their activities. It’s a dastardly one-two punch, and one that Netlab 360 believes makes DDG “seemingly unstoppable.” Security professionals often disrupt botnets by wresting control of a domain name or an essential server away from the criminal operators. That won’t work against DDG. Despite its sophistication, the DDG botnet has grown very slowly. Its spread is also fairly limited geographically-speaking, too, with 86% of infections occurring in China. It’s not in the same league as botnets like Conficker or Necurs, which hit tens of millions of computers. Netlab 360 researchers think there’s a simple explanation for that. DDG’ss creator is probably quite happy with things the way they are. Its zombie army can mine a fair bit of Monero without attracting a lot of attention. By shedding a little light on DDG, Netlab 360 hopes that the cybersecurity community can figure out a way to slow or disrupt its operation before it evolves into something much more sinister. Redis server owners are advised to secure database accounts with strong passwords, while OrientDB server owners should update their machines as soon as possible. The DDG botnet shows that crooks don't have to build advanced malware and multi-layered infrastructure to make a profit today. Because of this reason and the high yielding profits is why we've seen so many Monero-mining botnets appear in the past year. For more turn to OUR FORUM. |
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