Kevin G. Coleman

 

Posts by Kevin G. Coleman


The United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union sent shock waves across the Internet with an agreement approved last night which would give countries a right to access international telecommunications services including Internet traffic.

(This story was updated a 4:30 p.m. ET to include additional reporting.) Keep reading →

The United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union has taken the unprecedented step of adopting a standard for the Internet that would essentially permit eavesdropping on a global basis.

According to a just-published piece on the RT.com web site, ITU members decided to adopt a standard, known as Y.2770, which would permit the inspection of Internet traffic. This inspection of emails and message content would be the physical world equivalent of opening any piece of mail and reading what is inside. The only defense against this is encryption. Keep reading →

If you are not familiar with the term virtual-state you are not alone – but it’s a term you’re going to hear more often.

Here is a working definition that has broad acceptance: A virtual-state is defined as a nebulous community of individuals that self-identify and share in common one or more social, political and/or ideological convictions, ideas or values. They act collectively to influence and bring about changes they deem appropriate. You can read more about virtual-states here. Keep reading →

Intelligence about the tragedy in Benghazi continues to dribble out very slowly, almost one document at a time. Some of the electronic cables, messages and reproductions of other physical documents have come into view over the past several weeks. Some of these documents were classified, but still found their way to members of Congress and openly reported in the media.

However, one piece of electronic information about security concerns on that fateful day has not received the attention it deserves. Keep reading →

Warning after warning has been given by military officials, intelligence agencies and private sector cybersecurity aspects about the growing national security threats emanating from cyber space.

Most recently, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta delivered what has been referred to as the first major policy speech on cyber security by a defense secretary. His speech, delivered in New York last week, has been called a call to (cyber) arms, declaring that the United States was facing the possibility of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor.” Keep reading →


On the heels of a well publicized distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on U.S. financial institutions came a warning about another coordinated and planned cyber attack against this critical infrastructure sector.

Cyber intelligence uncovered a fairly large, coordinated cyber attack that is said to use fraudulent wire transfers as the means of attack. This cybersecurity attack is said to leverage session hijacking in a man-in-the-middle cyber attack.

Man-in-the-middle cyber attack is defined as a compromise where the attacker is able to insert themselves between its target and the system or service in which the target is trying to access or use. An attacker accomplishes this by impersonating the system or service that the target is attempting to connect with by falsely rerouting the traffic to and from the service or by hijacking session data.

This attack is known to be initiated by spam and phishing emails, keystroke loggers as well as Trojans with remote access. A high attack concentration has been seen in the small and medium sized organizations and the transfer amounts have ranged from $400,000 to $900,000.

Multiple cyber intelligence sources have warned that an estimated 30 U.S. based financial services institutions may be the targets of an organized cyber criminal gang that is said to be the entity behind this attack.

Just recently the FBI issued a warning about this threat. Their warning stated that the criminals behind this cyber attack were using multiple techniques to obtain customer log-in credentials. Once the criminals have these credentials, they initiate international wire transfers.

For additional information you should monitor the FBI, in association with the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

Kevin G. Coleman is a long-time security technology executive and former Chief Strategist at Netscape. He is Senior Fellow with the Technolytics Institute weekly blog for Breaking Gov on the topic of cyber intelligence. Keep reading →


A few years ago I was headed into a meeting with the president of a critical infrastructure provider when I saw and photographed a picture of a yellow Post-it note with the user name a password written on it.

As with most people reading this blog I was angered that this could happen in 2007 after all the efforts and training that had occurred to increase the level of user security awareness. Here we are some 5 years later and I am sorry to say we have not made that much progress. Keep reading →

For several days, Bank of America’s systems had problems. The problems – primarily denial of service disruptions – hit their web site and reportedly their mobile banking services.

For BofA, the nation’s largest bank based on assets, this was not the first issue or attack they experienced in the past year. Nor in fact, was BofA the only U.S. financial institution that has been experiencing what appears to be a series of directed cyber attacks. JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup also are reported to have been struck by similar related aggressive cyber activities, beginning last year. Keep reading →

Recently I was with a CISO of a multi-billion dollar critical infrastructure provider in the private sector.

We were conducting a security scan and compiling a list of issues and areas that needed to be addressed as part of his overall security program. While at one of the facilities he received a notification that he shared with me. The message was that they had traced back the source of a breach that had occurred a few months back. Keep reading →

For weeks now rumors have been circulating about the White House working to draft an executive order, which will put in place cybersecurity measures to protect the critical infrastructure of the United States.

A glimpse of the draft’s intent was released in news reports in recent days, including a Washington Post report, which among other points, noted that the plans called for voluntary standards. Keep reading →

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