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 Technology

Phone improvements have long followed a well-trodden path: brighter screen, more memory, better camera, longer battery life. As a result, theres less and less to get excited about when it comes to product announcements. But in 2022, Apple, Huawei, and Motorola really did unveil something new and unexpected: texting   show more ...

via satellite. Its not yet about Instagramming from the top of Everest or in the middle of the Pacific, but you can now at least call for help or report your location with neither Wi-Fi nor 4G. How it works Satellite phones have been around for three decades, but they are still expensive, inconvenient, and fairly bulky. An innovation of recent years is satellite connectivity on ordinary phones — but this required new satellites. Previously, satellite phones worked using a small number of high-Earth-orbit satellites. But over the past 5–7 years, the key players — Iridium and Globalstar — have launched quite a few low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites, operating at an altitude of just 500–800 kilometers. The most hyped project of this kind is undoubtedly Elon Musks Starlink. However, while using similar technology, Starlink is aimed at relatively high-speed internet, and requires the subscriber to purchase a special terminal. However, in late December 2022, the first Starlink Gen2 satellite was launched, which will also provide connectivity for regular – non-satellite – smartphones. Iridiums LEO constellation and geostationary satellites of another operator. Illustration from iridium.com The satellites communicate with a phone in the relatively low-frequency L band (1.5–2 GHz). GPS and GLONASS satellites, which orbit at around 20,000 kilometers above Earth, operate in the same frequency range. The advantages of this range are low levels of both signal decay over long distances and weather interference. Thanks to this, the satellite can hear the phones weak transmitter. The main disadvantage is a low data-transfer rate. Thats why all satellite-based services were discussing today basically rely on the SMS format: 140 characters per message, and not a selfie in sight. To support satellite communication, three things are required from the phone: modem support for the satellite network radio protocol, a modified antenna, and special software. The trickiest is the first of these, because such a modem needs to not only be produced in the first place, but also coordinated with the satellite operator. Not surprisingly, the leader of the pack is Qualcomm, which not only dominates the mobile chipset market, but also has nearly 30 years of experience in satellite systems (after having jointly founded the Globalstar network in 1994). Therefore, the first large-scale launch of satellite telephone communication was made possible by Qualcomms knowhow and Apples financial muscle. The latter paid for the feature to be implemented in the new iPhone chips, and, more significantly, invested a solid US$450 million in the development of the Globalstar network, its satellites and ground stations. Apple was the first to enter the market, but for sure wont remain the monopolist. At the same time, Qualcomm has implemented the feature in its Snapdragon X70 modem chip, which is part of the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform. The Snapdragon Satellite service was announced in partnership with the Iridium network, so in H2 2023 we can expect (expensive) smartphones capable of sending and receiving text messages via satellite. Other players are scrambling aboard too: Huawei plans to provide a similar service in its smartphones using Chinas BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (although there are no details on the timing or coverage); Motorola is partnering up with the Skylo (Inmarsat) satellite provider; and the above-mentioned Starlink has entered into an agreement with U.S. operator T-Mobile to co-deploy such a service on T-Mobiles licensed 1.9 GHz bands. For future 5G devices, the ability to communicate with satellite base stations instead of ground ones is already standardized. But actual devices with such functionality are set to appear no earlier than 2024. Quality and coverage The technology imposes its own limitations, which will be the same whoever makes the phone. First, its certainly slower and less reliable than cellular communication. Thus, the phone will offer the satellite option only if theres no other connection available, and with major restrictions so as not to overload the network: one 140-character text and no multimedia — in emergencies, for example. Apple demonstrates this very clearly: first, the phone determines the precise location and asks for a few details about the situation, then it integrates the collected information and sends it as one packet. Collecting information and sending an emergency message by iPhone. Illustration from apple.com Second, the satellite link only works in open spaces. Theres no linkage in thick forest, dense urban areas, or rocky gorges. Third, sending a text isnt as simple as were used to. You need to: hold the phone in front of you, turn in the right direction, follow the on-screen instructions, and then wait 10–60 seconds until the hundreds of bytes are sent and received. Instructions for connecting to a satellite with an iPhone. Illustration from apple.com Fourth, depending on the satellite provider, the service may not be available in certain regions. This is perhaps the biggest drawback at present — the lack of a developed market for either satellite communications or roaming. As such, both Globalstar and Apple offer Emergency SOS in the U.S., southern Canada, and some countries in Western Europe. Satellites do not generally serve high latitudes (above the 62nd parallel), which leaves Alaska and northern Canada, for example, out of reach. The situation with Iridium is better: its satellites work both at the equator and the two poles. The only thing missing is compatible Android terminals from Qualcomms partners. Some satellite constellations have gaps in their coverage, so certain places are not served 24/7. This is not relevant for Apple and Qualcomm services, but some competitors may show a Please try again in half-an-hour message at the crucial moment. Prices No one has any clear idea yet of how much the service should cost. Clearly, it wont be mass-market, because most people live inside the regular cellular network coverage area. What the surcharge for emergency communications will be, and in what format, the market will test and determine in the coming years. Apple offers it as a free service, but only for two years after purchasing a new iPhone. What the subscription fee will be after that the company hasnt announced. But usage will be modest, because Apple is positioning the feature solely as an emergency communication channel. All we know for now (at the time of posting this blogpost) is that Motorola plans to charge US$5 for 30 messages. But these can be any messages — not just emergency ones. Security Texting is widely known to be an insecure communication channel. So what about the privacy of satellite texts? Apple says its messages are packaged and encrypted, making them near impossible to fake or intercept when sent from a phone to a satellite. However, since they pertain to an emergency, the company immediately forwards the information to the response center closest to the subscriber (rescuers, firefighters, etc.), where it is no longer encrypted and is processed according to that centers procedures. The same is true for the Snapdragon Satellite service, which relies on Garmin inReach infrastructure: the data transfer itself is encrypted, but the operators then handle the decrypted text. When texting friends, and not the emergency services, dont count on end-to-end encryption — all specifications only mention in-transit encryption. The good news is that this rules out substitution of the sender address or replacement of the message text. For a glimpse into what to expect from phones in the foreseeable future, take a look at the ads for the inReach service, for which specialized devices have long been available. Among the potentially unsafe features in terms of privacy is periodic sending of the subscribers location to the satellite to enable their friends to track their ascent up a mountain, for example. To date, no service based on conventional smartphones is touting this option — only on-demand sending of location. But given that you have to pull out your smartphone and spin around in search of a satellite, theres no need to worry about stealthy location sending, at least for now. But its worth keeping an eye on the development of this technology.

 Breaches and Incidents

The City of Oakland disclosed a ransomware attack, the security breach began on Wednesday night. In an abundance of caution, the City of Oakland has taken impacted systems offline, while they work to secure the impacted infrastructure.

 Threat Actors

OilRig APT evolved its methods to bypass security protections by adding a new backdoor to its arsenal to support its long-running espionage campaign against government organizations in the Middle East. 

 Trends, Reports, Analysis

Romance scams cost victims at least $1.3 billion in 2022, according to the US Federal Trade Commission's latest numbers. Almost 70,000 people reported these crimes last year, and the median reported loss was $4,400.

 Expert Blogs and Opinion

Football reminds us of the important elements that drive effective people-centric cybersecurity. With a growing threat landscape, organizations must stay proactive: they must continuously upskill teams and individuals across the entire organization.

 Identity Theft, Fraud, Scams

A surge of phishing emails impersonating DHL and MetaMask started hitting inboxes of Namecheap customers last week, attempting to trick recipients into sharing personal information or sharing their crypto wallet’s secret recovery phrase.

 Threat Actors

A previously unknown threat group, named NewsPenguin, was found targeting organizations in Pakistan with the upcoming Pakistan International Maritime Expo & Conference (PIMEC-2023) as bait. The researchers stated that the goal of the cybercriminal group is solely focused on cyberespionage, with no financial motivation. 

 Malware and Vulnerabilities

The most severe issue belongs to ONLYOFFICE’s Workspace enterprise app platform. Tracked as CVE-2022-47412, the stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability is believed to impact versions from 0 through 12.1.0.1760.

 Breaches and Incidents

BetterCyber says that the leak site claims the ransomware group has "private and personal confidential data, a lot of technical documentation, agreements, employee and client documents."

 Threat Actors

Proofpoint security experts uncovered a threat actor, tracked as TA886, infecting companies in the U.S. and Germany with the new WasabiSeed and Screenshotter malware. The custom malware can perform surveillance and steal data. Hackers push their malware via phishing emails that include Microsoft Publisher (.pub) attachments with malicious macros or PDFs containing URLs that download JavaScript files.

 Malware and Vulnerabilities

Trend Micro spotted an active campaign that leverages a fake employment bait against the cryptocurrency industry in Eastern Europe. Hackers are reportedly deploying Enigma Stealer which is a modified version of the Stealerium information stealer. The infection chain begins with a malicious RAR archive distributed through phishing attempts or via social media.

 Threat Actors

Information on the sophisticated APT group Earth Zhulong, which targets Vietnamese organizations, has recently come to light. The gang, which has been active since 2020, is thought to be connected to the hacker collective 1937CN from China. Organizations are suggested to stay alert and leverage best practices such as the use of anti-malware and firewalls to stay protected.

 Feed

Ubuntu Security Notice 5867-1 - Several security issues were discovered in the WebKitGTK Web and JavaScript engines. If a user were tricked into viewing a malicious website, a remote attacker could exploit a variety of issues related to web browser security, including cross-site scripting attacks, denial of service attacks, and arbitrary code execution.

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Ubuntu Security Notice 5866-1 - It was discovered that Nova did not properly manage data logged into the log file. An attacker with read access to the service's logs could exploit this issue and may obtain sensitive information. This issue only affected Ubuntu 16.04 ESM and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. It was discovered that   show more ...

Nova did not properly handle attaching and reattaching the encrypted volume. An attacker could possibly use this issue to perform a denial of service attack. This issue only affected Ubuntu 16.04 ESM.

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Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-0574-01 - Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is Red Hat's cloud computing Kubernetes application platform solution designed for on-premise or private cloud deployments. This advisory contains the container images for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.9.55. Issues addressed include a bypass vulnerability.

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Debian Linux Security Advisory 5346-1 - Multiple security issues were discovered in libde265, an implementation of the H.265 video codec which may result in denial of service and potentially the execution of arbitrary code if a malformed media file is processed.

 Feed

A previously unknown threat actor has been targeting companies in the U.S. and Germany with bespoke malware designed to steal confidential information. Enterprise security company Proofpoint, which is tracking the activity cluster under the name Screentime, said the group, dubbed TA866, is likely financially motivated. "TA866 is an organized actor able to perform well thought-out attacks at

 Feed

There have been a number of reports of attacks on industrial control systems (ICS) in the past few years. Looking a bit closer, most of the attacks seem to have spilt over from traditional IT. That's to be expected, as production systems are commonly connected to ordinary corporate networks at this point. Though our data does not indicate at this point that a lot of threat actors specifically

 Feed

The advanced persistent threat (APT) actor known as Tonto Team carried out an unsuccessful attack on cybersecurity company Group-IB in June 2022. The Singapore-headquartered firm said that it detected and blocked malicious phishing emails originating from the group targeting its employees. It's also the second attack aimed at Group-IB, the first of which took place in March 2021. Tonto Team,

 Feed

An unknown threat actor created malicious game modes for the Dota 2 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game that could have been exploited to establish backdoor access to players' systems. The modes exploited a high-severity flaw in the V8 JavaScript engine tracked as CVE-2021-38003 (CVSS score: 8.8), which was exploited as a zero-day and addressed by Google in October 2021. "Since V8

2023-02
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