The Cyberlaw Podcast

In episode 166, we interview Kevin Mandia, the CEO and Board Director of FireEye, an intelligence-led security company.  FireEye recently outed a new cyberespionage actor associated with the Vietnamese government.  Kevin tells us how FireEye does attribution and just how good the Vietnamese are (short answer:  surprisingly good but apparently small in scale).  Along the way, we also cover questions such as whether China has its own set of forensic cybersecurity firms, how confident we should be about the attribution of WannaCry to North Korea, and whether PLA Unit 61398 should treat its designation as APT1 as a prestige designation, sort of like having “bob@microsoft” as your email address.

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback. Send an email to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.

 

Direct download: SteptoeCyberlawPodcast-166.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:09am EDT

Episode 165 is a WannaCry Festivus celebration, as The Airing of Grievances overtakes The Patching of Old Machines. Michael Vatis joins me in identifying all the entities who’ve been blamed for WannaCry, starting with Microsoft for not patching Windows XP until after the damage was done.  (We exonerate Microsoft on that count.)

Another candidate for WannaCry Goat of the Year is (of course) NSA for allegedly letting a powerful hacking tool fall into the hands of the Shadow Brokers, who released it in time for WannaCry’s authors to drop it into their worm. Private industry’s fingerpointing at NSA has led to introduction of the PATCH Act, which tries to institutionalize (and tilt) the vulnerability equities process.  I raise a caution flag about trying to prevent harmful vulnerability leaks by spreading information about the vulnerabilities to a new batch of civilian agencies.  I also ask whether a rational equities process should require that companies  get the benefit of the process only if they agree to patch their products promptly and if they cooperate to the extent possible with law enforcement rather than forcing agencies to hack their products just to carry out lawful searches.  Somehow I’m guessing that will cool Silicon Valley’s enthusiasm for the whole idea.

Meanwhile, Shadow Brokers, widely thought to be Russian intelligence, may be having an equally awkward Festivus celebration with their masters, since the exploit they released seems to be causing more widespread discomfort in Russia than in the West, probably because of Russia’s high usage of unpatched pirate software.

The North Koreans should be on the carpet as well, since there is increasing reason to believe that WannaCry was a mostly failed effort by Kim Jong Un to raise money through cybercrime. The worm seems to have collected only $100 thousand in bitcoin for its authors, and the worst of its impact was likely felt in China, the world capital of pirated unpatched software.  Since North Korea seems to rely on China’s internet infrastructure to launch and control its cyberattacks, launching one that mainly hurts its host is typically shortsighted.

Finally, the victims don’t escape blame. The SEC unveiled its latest criticism of private sector security practices in the financial industry as the WannaCry publicity reached a peak.

Meanwhile, our own Jon Sallet joins the Oliver-Pai debate on net neutrality, and through the magic of radio, he is able to coffee-cup-shame both of them.  (Sound effects credit to www.zapsplat.com.)  As an encore, Jon explains why the European Commission fined Facebook $122 million over its acquisition of WhatsApp – without undoing the deal.

As always the Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

 

Direct download: Episode_165.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:48am EDT

With our sound system back online, episode 163 is already a big step up from Lost Episode 162.  (Transcripts of 162 are available for those who wish by sending email to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com.)

Our interview is with Susan Munro, of Steptoe’s Beijing office.  Susan unwinds the complex spool of cyberlaw measures promulgated by the Chinese government.

In the news, Maury Shenk and I note that Putin reran his U.S. playbook in the French election, but the French were ready for him.  Indeed, what we originally thought to be crude Russian forgeries may actually be Macron “honey docs” meant to look like crude Russian forgeries. If so, my hat is off to Macron’s I.T. team. 

Meanwhile, Jennifer Quinn-Barabanov spots a new trend in cybersecurity litigation.  It’s nuts, but that’s not the new part.

The intelligence community’s latest transparency report reveals a shocking stat about “backdoor” FBI searches of 702 for criminal cases.  The bureau did that all of … one time.  Those who want to clog our security services with ever more burdensome processes are going to have to find a bigger scandal.  

The Republicans complaining about Susan Rice and “unmasking” can find more to work with in the report. Turns out that Americans were identified in masked or unmasked form in about 4000 reports last year, but by the time the report writers and the intelligence consumers were done, about 3000 reports had seen their Americans unmasked. With numbers like that, if the issue hadn’t been raised first by Republicans, every newspaper in America would be calling for an investigation of unmasking standards.

Okay, this is getting embarrassing.  The White House has now spent more time drafting a cyber EO calling for urgent reports from the departments than it’s giving the departments to write the urgent reports.  And so far, as Alan Cohn points out, all we have to show for it is … another leaked draft.

Jennifer explains why the latest Home Depot settlement is both good and bad for the plaintiffs’ bar. 

Alan dives deep for substance in the White House’s EO creating an American Tech Council.  He comes up empty.  The EO is purely procedural.

Maury explains the UK’s draft surveillance obligations, concluding there’s not much new in them.  And Germany’s intelligence service is complaining both about Russian hacking and about its lack of authority to, uh, hack back to destroy third party servers.  Chris Painter, call your office!

Alan tells us that DHS cybersecurity did pretty well in budget deal, but only if your point of comparison is EPA’s budget. 

At least DHS is making the right enemies.  Jennifer explains DHS backpedaling on the privacy rights of non-Americans.  And Alan and I flag the ABA’s interest in border searches of lawyers’ electronics.

Finally, in cybersecurity news, the Guardian plays the world’s smallest violin for billionaire superyacht owners, and the recent defeat of a common form of two-factor authentication will put new cybersecurity pressure on SS7.   

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback. Send an email to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

 

Direct download: SteptoeCyberlawPodcast-163.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:52pm EDT

In this episode, I debate Michael Schmitt, a prime mover in two Talinn Manuals on international law and cyber operations. We are joined by an expert on the topic and a new Steptoe partner, Brian Egan, who was formerly the State Department legal adviser, among other accomplishments. And among the hypotheticals is indeed a DDOS attack on the United States by internet-enabled vibrators with unchangeable default passwords. Because, as the news roundup covers, the FTC may soon be wrestling with the question of how to regulate such security violations.

Meanwhile, Michael Vatis and I clash over the meaning of the NSA’s decision to abandon productive intelligence collection. I think it’s risk aversion and a return to September 10. Michael thinks it’s too early to make that judgment.

Stephanie Roy gives an overview of Ajit Pai’s plan to undo the last two Federal Communications Commissions’ net neutrality strategies.

Michael reports on two Silicon Valley giants who fell prey to $100 million (each) cyberscams. I wonder if this means that technologists will stop gloating that Snowden and Shadowbrokers show that only private companies can be trusted to do security right.

This week in news that isn’t news at all: The Russians who hacked Clinton are going after Emmanuel Macron in France, says Trend Micro.  

Finally, vigilante justice seems to be sweeping the internet, as the spousal spyware firm, Flexispy, is doxed, and Brickerbot starts securing insecure IOT devices the hard way—by bricking them.

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback. Send an email to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

 

Direct download: SteptoeCyberlawPodcast-162.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:55pm EDT

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