A recent joint Cybersecurity Advisory acknowledges Chinese state-sponsored cyber-espionage of US critical infrastructure and includes a hunting guide to help organizations identify and mitigate hacker code that is “living off the land.”
The SolarWinds hack allowed for Russian hackers to poke around in government and private company networks for nine months-unnoticed. Those companies and agencies are left questioning even years later if the hackers are still inside, despite their best security patches.
Companies have been incentivizing White Hat Hackers and Gray Hat Hackers for their assistance in discovering software vulnerabilities since 1995.
Called bug bounty programs, these have become increasingly popular over the years, particularly as companies digitalize to a greater degree.
Nation-states like Russia are accelerating cyberwarfare plans, finding weaknesses, disrupting infrastructure and stockpiling internet vulnerabilities for future widespread and targeted attacks. The leaked documents include (what appear to be) proposed physical targets across the US as well as digital infrastructure that (if initiated and the hackers’ objectives achieved) would bring the supply chain to a screeching halt.
