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Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) Labels Salt Typhoon ‘Unprecedented Telecom Breach in U.S. History’

In September, I described Salt Typhoon as a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities in American infrastructure—vulnerabilities persistently exploited by foreign adversaries in a calculated, multi-pronged campaign. Today, those words resonate more sharply than ever. This latest cyber offensive, attributed to Chinese-backed hackers, underscores the growing sophistication of advanced persistent threat (APT) groups and their relentless targeting of critical U.S. systems.

These incursions are not isolated. Operations like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon reveal a chilling consistency in their objectives: exploiting the weakest links in America’s digital defenses. Each campaign, designed with precision, probes the structural fault lines of U.S. cybersecurity, highlighting the expanding ambitions of foreign actors determined to compromise national security.

The Salt Typhoon Incident
The Salt Typhoon breach raises alarms for its focus on Internet Service Providers (ISPs)—the backbone of American connectivity. Investigations have suggested that critical infrastructure, including Cisco Systems routers, may have been exploited, though Cisco has vigorously denied any compromise of their equipment. Regardless, the implications are grave. The potential for adversaries to intercept data, disrupt services, and surveil at will poses a direct and unprecedented threat to national security.

This breach highlights the dangerous potential of Living off the Land (LotL) techniques, which Salt Typhoon has used to devastating effect. By exploiting legitimate system tools like Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), PowerShell, and network utilities, the hackers minimized their digital footprint. This strategy evades traditional defenses while allowing attackers to persist unnoticed within compromised systems.

Why LotL Techniques Matter
Evasion: LotL leverages tools already present in systems, bypassing security measures that whitelist these utilities.
Persistence: Hackers can maintain long-term access without deploying custom binaries, making detection even more challenging.
Stealth: By mimicking normal system operations, LotL activities are easily overlooked during routine monitoring.
LotL exemplifies the calculated approach of Salt Typhoon. By integrating seamlessly into critical infrastructure operations, the group has demonstrated its ability to infiltrate and persist undetected, particularly in U.S. telecommunications networks.

A Growing Threat
Despite its magnitude, the public often remains unaware of the depth and frequency of these intrusions. The U.S., as Sen. Warner aptly stated, is perpetually on the defensive—patching vulnerabilities while adversaries press forward, undeterred. This dynamic is not new, but the scale and stakes of Salt Typhoon elevate it to a historical inflection point in cyber warfare.

Beijing’s vast cyber apparatus, insidious and relentless, continues to demonstrate its capability to penetrate America’s most vital systems without firing a single shot. As history has often shown, the full impact of such breaches may only become clear long after the damage has been done.

A Call to Action
The lessons of Salt Typhoon are clear: U.S. cybersecurity must evolve rapidly to address the persistent and growing threat posed by state-sponsored cyber operations. Enhancing detection, improving resilience, and investing in cutting-edge security measures will be critical to defending against these sophisticated and stealthy campaigns.

Let Salt Typhoon serve as both a warning and a rallying cry. Inaction is no longer an option when the stakes are this high.

By Skeeter Wesinger

November 22, 2024

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sen-mark-r-warner-d-virginia-labels-salt-typhoon-telecom-wesinger-z1twc

 

 

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Nvidia Beats the Street Record Growth Fueled by Hopper and Blackwell Innovations

Nvidia, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, has emerged as a beacon of technological innovation, much as the industrial giants of a bygone era reshaped their worlds. Its latest creations—the Hopper GPU and Blackwell systems—are not merely advancements in computing; they are the tools of a new industrial revolution, their influence stretching across industries and into the lives of millions. As measured by its astonishing financial results, the company’s trajectory reflects the unparalleled demand for these tools.

The latest quarter’s revenue, a staggering $35.08 billion, represents a 94% leap from the $18.12 billion of a year prior—a figure that would have seemed fantastical not long ago. Its net income soared to $19.31 billion, more than double last year’s third-quarter figure of $9.24 billion. Even after accounting for adjustments, earnings reached 81 cents per share, outpacing Wall Street’s expectations of 75 cents per share on projected revenues of $33.17 billion, according to FactSet.

This is no mere coincidence of market forces or transient trends. Nvidia’s success is rooted in the astonishing versatility of its Hopper GPU and Blackwell systems. Their applications span a broad spectrum—from artificial intelligence to cybersecurity—each deployment, which is a testament to their transformative power. These are not simply tools but harbingers of a future where the limits of what machines can do are redrawn with each passing quarter.

The Hopper and Blackwell systems are not isolated achievements; they are central to Nvidia’s rise as a leader in innovation, its vision ever fixed on the horizon. The technology reshapes industries as varied as medicine, entertainment, finance, and autonomous systems, weaving a thread of progress through all it touches. Like the significant advancements of earlier eras, these creations do not merely answer existing questions; they pose new ones, unlocking doors to realms previously unimagined.

Thus, Nvidia’s record-breaking quarter is a financial milestone and a marker of its place in history. As it shapes the future of computing, the company’s influence extends far beyond the confines of Silicon Valley. It is, in a sense, a reflection of our age—a testament to human ingenuity and the ceaseless drive to innovate, explore, and create.

By Skeeter Wesinger

November 20, 2024

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The New Frontline in Security Technology: Large Language Models in the Battle for Software Security

In the age of relentless digital transformation, software security remains both a bulwark and a vulnerability. The deployment of Large Language Models (LLMs) as tools to fortify this critical frontier marks a turning point, one that evokes the blend of promise and peril characteristic of technological revolutions. Like radar in the skies of the Second World War, these LLMs have the potential to detect threats unseen by the human eye, provided they are used judiciously and in concert with other defenses.

The power of LLMs lies in their unparalleled ability to analyze vast swaths of source code with a speed and thoroughness that human developers cannot match. From detecting the cracks in the foundation—buffer overflows, injection vulnerabilities, hardcoded credentials, and improper input validation—to recognizing subtle, non-obvious threats that arise from the interplay of complex systems, these models operate with an unrelenting vigilance. What might take a team of skilled engineers days or weeks to unearth, an LLM can flag in minutes, scouring line after line with mechanical precision.

This capability is most potent during the prerelease phase of development when the entire source code is laid bare. It is here, before a product sees the light of day, that LLMs can expose vulnerabilities lurking in the shadows, vulnerabilities that, if left unchecked, could later metastasize into full-blown breaches. The cost of such breaches is not merely financial but reputational, eroding the trust that underpins all digital enterprises.

Consider the subtle artistry of an LLM detecting insecure data handling in a function, not because the code itself appears flawed but because of the way it interacts with calls elsewhere in the codebase. This is no brute-force analysis; it is an exercise in pattern recognition, a demonstration of how machines are learning to see the forest as well as the trees.

Yet, as with radar, the promise of LLMs must be tempered by realism. They are not a standalone defense, nor do they obviate the need for more traditional measures. They complement fuzzing, which tests software by bombarding it with random inputs and identifying areas where such testing might be most fruitful. They serve as a first line of defense, flagging issues for human reviewers who can then apply their judgment and experience to resolve them.

Moreover, LLMs can act as vigilant assistants during development itself, offering real-time suggestions for secure coding practices. In doing so, they become not merely tools of analysis but instruments of prevention, guiding developers away from insecure practices before they become embedded in the code.

What sets LLMs apart is their scalability. Unlike manual reviews, which are labor-intensive and constrained by human resources, LLMs can analyze sprawling codebases or even multiple projects simultaneously. This scalability is nothing short of transformative for organizations tasked with securing complex software ecosystems.

Used in concert with fuzzing, manual reviews, and other security protocols, LLMs represent the new frontline in software security. They bring automation and scale to an arena that has long been constrained by the limitations of time and manpower. Their ability to access and analyze full source code during development ensures that the vulnerabilities they uncover are not only flagged but actionable.

The lessons of history remind us that no single technology, no matter how transformative, can operate in isolation. LLMs are tools of immense potential, but it is the interplay of man and machine, of automation and expertise, that will ultimately determine their success. In this emerging battle for the sanctity of our digital infrastructures, LLMs are an ally of immense promise, provided we deploy them wisely and with an understanding of their limitations.

By Skeeter Wesinger

November 18, 2024

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-frontline-security-technology-skeeter-wesinger-olzbe

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Film Review: Outer Banks Season 4 – A Treasure Worth the Journey, But at What Cost?

Season 4 of Outer Banks takes the Netflix series into deeper, more daring territory, delivering a blend of thrilling adventure and emotional depth that sets it apart from its peers. With high-stakes drama and gut-wrenching moments, the show continues to hold its place as a standout teen drama with universal appeal.

At the center of it all is John B Routledge, played with charm and tenacity by Chase Stokes. Stokes, who once hesitated to audition for the role, has fully stepped into John B’s scrappy, determined persona. From his early days in Lost Island to television credits on Stranger Things and Tell Me Your Secrets, Stokes has grown into an actor who commands the screen. His portrayal of John B grounds the whirlwind narrative, making the treasure hunts and betrayals feel deeply personal.

Madelyn Cline as Sarah Cameron shines as both a partner in adventure and a layered character in her own right. A Charleston, South Carolina native, Cline’s rise from summer commercials to a Netflix lead is as compelling as her on-screen journey. Her chemistry with Stokes is electric, and her ability to convey Sarah’s inner conflict adds a richness to the series’ emotional core.

This season’s most devastating twist comes in the form of JJ Maybank’s story. Rudy Pankow, who has always brought a chaotic, magnetic energy to JJ, delivers his most heartbreaking performance yet. The revelation that JJ is a Kook by birth, followed by his tragic death at the hands of his biological father, Chandler Groff, is a bold narrative decision that leaves a lasting impact. Pankow’s final scenes are raw, emotional, and a testament to his talent. It’s a loss that will undoubtedly reshape the dynamic of the Pogues.

The Pogues themselves are the heart of the series, a chosen family bound by loyalty and shared dreams. With Madison Bailey as Kiara and Jonathan Daviss as Pope continuing to deliver nuanced performances, the group’s bond feels authentic and unbreakable, even as they face unimaginable loss.

Season 4 also cements Outer Banks as a show willing to take risks. By pushing its characters into uncharted emotional territory, it maintains a balance between high-energy action and poignant storytelling. The finale is both a celebration of the show’s adventurous spirit and a sobering reminder of its stakes.

Outer Banks remains a treasure in the Netflix lineup—bold, heartfelt, and impossible to ignore. Season 4 raises the bar, leaving audiences eager to see where the Pogues’ journey will take them next.

By Skeeter Wesinger

November 15, 2024

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/film-review-outer-banks-season-4-treasure-worth-journey-wesinger-gjqce

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A New Front in Cybersecurity Exposed

In a move that has set the cybersecurity world on alert, Palo Alto Networks has sounded the alarm on a significant security flaw in their Expedition tool, a platform designed to streamline the migration of firewall configurations to their proprietary PAN-OS. This vulnerability, codified as CVE-2024-5910, underscores the critical importance of authentication protocols in safeguarding digital boundaries. The flaw itself—a missing authentication mechanism—permits attackers with mere network access the alarming ability to reset administrator credentials, effectively opening the gate to unauthorized access and potentially compromising configuration secrets, credentials, and sensitive data that lie at the heart of an organization’s digital defenses.

The gravity of this flaw is underscored by the immediate attention of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which has not only added the vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog but also issued a direct mandate: all federal agencies must address this vulnerability by November 28, 2024. The urgency of this deadline signifies more than just bureaucratic efficiency; it speaks to the alarming nature of a vulnerability that CISA reports is being exploited in the wild, thus shifting this issue from a theoretical risk to an active threat.

Palo Alto Networks has responded with characteristic clarity, outlining a series of robust security measures to mitigate this vulnerability. They emphasize restricting the PAN-OS management interface to trusted internal IP addresses, advising against exposure to the open internet. In addition, they recommend isolating the management interface within a dedicated VLAN, further securing communications through SSH and HTTPS. These measures, while straightforward, demand a high level of attention to detail in implementation—an effort that could very well mean the difference between a fortified system and a compromised one.

Meanwhile, in a strategic pivot, Palo Alto Networks has announced that the core functionalities of Expedition will soon be integrated into new offerings, marking the end of Expedition support as of January 2025. The shift signals a broader evolution within the company’s ecosystem, perhaps heralding more advanced, integrated solutions that can preemptively address vulnerabilities before they surface.

The directive to apply patches and adhere to the recommended security configurations is not just sound advice; it is, as security expert Wesinger noted, a necessary defensive measure in a rapidly shifting landscape where the stability of one’s systems rests on the relentless vigilance of their custodians. The events unfolding around CVE-2024-5910 are a reminder that in cybersecurity, as in any theater of conflict, complacency remains the greatest vulnerability.

By Skeeter Wesinger

November 14, 2024

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-front-cybersecurity-exposed-skeeter-wesinger-rjypf

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The age of Generative AI

The advent of Generative AI (GenAI) has begun to transform the professional services sector in ways that are reminiscent of past industrial shifts. In pricing models, particularly, GenAI has introduced an undeniable disruption. Tasks once demanding hours of meticulous human effort are now being automated, ushering in a reduction of operational costs and a surge in market competition. Consequently, firms are being drawn towards new pricing paradigms—cost-plus and competitive pricing structures—whereby savings born of automation are, at least in part, relayed to clients.

GenAI’s influence is most visible in the routinized undertakings that have traditionally absorbed the time and energy of skilled professionals. Drafting documents, parsing data, and managing routine communications are now handled with remarkable precision by AI systems. This liberation of human resources allows professionals to concentrate on nuanced, strategic pursuits, from client consultation to complex problem-solving—areas where human intellect remains irreplaceable. Thus, the industry drifts from the conventional hourly billing towards a value-centric pricing system, aligning fees with the substantive outcomes delivered, not merely the hours invested. In this, GenAI has flattened the landscape: smaller firms, once marginalized by the resources and manpower of larger entities, can now stand as credible competitors, offering similar outputs at newly accessible price points.

Further, the rise of GenAI has spurred firms to implement subscription-based or tiered pricing models for services once bespoke in nature. Consider a client subscribing to a GenAI-powered tool that provides routine reports or documentation at a reduced rate, with options to escalate for human oversight or bespoke customization. This hybrid model—where AI formulates initial drafts and human professionals later refine them—has expanded service offerings, giving clients choices between an AI-driven product and one fortified by expert review. In this evolving terrain, firms are experimenting with cost structures that distinguish between AI-generated outputs and those augmented by human intervention, enabling clients to opt for an economical, AI-exclusive service or a premium, expert-reviewed alternative.

Investment in proprietary GenAI technology has become a distinguishing factor among leading firms. To some clients, these customized AI solutions—tailored for fields such as legal interpretation or financial forecasting—exude an allure of exclusivity, thereby justifying the elevated fees firms attach to them. GenAI’s inherent capacity to track and quantify usage has also paved the way for dynamic pricing models. Here, clients are billed in direct proportion to their engagement with GenAI’s capabilities, whether through the volume of reports generated or the features utilized. In this, professional services firms have crafted a usage-based pricing system, a model flexible enough to reflect clients’ actual needs and consumption.

However, with progress comes the shadow of regulation. As governments and regulatory bodies move to address GenAI’s ethical and data implications, professional service firms, particularly in sensitive sectors like finance, healthcare, and law, may find themselves bearing the weight of compliance costs. These expenses will likely be passed on to clients, especially where data protection and GenAI-driven decision-making demand rigorous oversight.

In the aggregate, GenAI’s integration is compelling professional services firms towards a dynamic, flexible, and transparent pricing landscape—one that mirrors the dual efficiencies of AI and the nuanced insights of human expertise. Firms willing to incorporate GenAI thoughtfully are poised not only to retain a competitive edge but also to expand their client offerings through tiered and value-based pricing. The age of GenAI, it seems, may well be one that redefines professional services, merging the best of human acumen with the swift precision of artificial intelligence.

Skeeter Wesinger

November 8, 2024

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/age-generative-ai-skeeter-wesinger-oe7pe

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Dominion Voting Systems and the DVSorder Affair A Saga in American Election Security

In early 2024, a team of researchers at the University of Michigan and Auburn University stumbled upon an overlooked flaw in Dominion’s Democracy Suite voting system. The flaw, astonishing in its simplicity, harked back to the 1970s: a rudimentary linear congruential generator for creating random numbers, a method already marked as insecure half a century ago. Yet there it lay, embedded in the heart of America’s election machinery. This flaw, known as DVSorder, allowed the order of ballots to be exposed, violating a voter’s sacred right to secrecy without needing inside access or privileged software.

Dominion Voting Systems responded, as companies often do, with carefully measured words—a single-page advisory noting that “best practices” and “legal advisors” could mitigate the flaw. A software update, Democracy Suite 5.17, was eventually rolled out, claiming to resolve the vulnerability. Yet this patch, touted as a “solution,” seemed only to deepen the questions surrounding Dominion’s response. Was it a fix, or merely a stopgap?

A Bureaucratic Response: The Slow March of Democracy Suite 5.17

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission granted its stamp of approval to Democracy Suite 5.17 in March 2023, seemingly content with its certification. But the rollout that followed revealed the entrenched and fragmented nature of America’s election infrastructure. Election officials, bound by local constraints, cited logistical challenges, costs, and the impending presidential election as reasons to delay. In the absence of federal urgency or clear guidance from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the vulnerability remained in effect, a silent threat from Georgia to California.

Even as researchers watched from the sidelines, Dominion and federal agencies moved cautiously, with state adoption of Democracy Suite 5.17 proceeding at a glacial pace. Some states, like Michigan and Minnesota, made efforts to upgrade, but others deferred, considering the patch a burden best shouldered after the election. Thus, the DVSorder vulnerability persisted, largely unresolved in precincts where patching was deemed too disruptive.

The Patchwork of Democracy Suite 5.17: A System in Pieces

As expected, Democracy Suite 5.17 encountered obstacles in deployment, emblematic of the fractured approach to American election security. States such as Michigan tried to sanitize data to safeguard voter privacy, but the result was incomplete; others attempted to shuffle ballots, a solution whose effectiveness remained dubious. The whole exercise appeared as a microcosm of America’s approach to its electoral machinery: decentralized, hesitant, and all too often compromised by cost and convenience.

A Sobering Reminder for Democracy’s Future

The DVSorder affair serves as a reminder that elections, despite their image of order, depend on fallible human governance and systems. In this case, a mere oversight in programming triggered a vulnerability that risked eroding voter privacy, a cornerstone of democracy itself. Dominion’s response, slow and bureaucratic, reveals the unsettling reality that our reliance on technology in elections opens doors to errors whose repercussions may be profound.

The researchers who exposed this flaw were not saboteurs but, in a sense, stewards of public trust. They brought to light a sobering truth: that in the age of digital democracy, even the smallest vulnerability can ripple outward, potentially undermining the promises of privacy and integrity on which the system stands.

As the dust settles, DVSorder may join the list of vulnerabilities patched and closed, yet a shadow lingers. With each election cycle, new threats and oversights emerge, casting a faint but persistent question over the future of American democracy. One wonders—will we be ready for the next vulnerability that arises? Who knows.

By Skeeter Wesinger

November 4, 2024

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dominion-voting-systems-dvsorder-affair-saga-american-wesinger-i4qoe

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