New spyware detected targeting firms in Russia, China

 

FRANKFURT: A previously unknown hacking group variously dubbed "Strider" or "ProjectSauron" has carried out cyber-espionage attacks against select targets in Russia,China, Iran, Sweden, Belgium and Rwanda, security researchers said on Monday.

The group, which has been active since at least 2011 and could have links to a national intelligence agency, uses Remsec, an advanced piece of hidden malware, Symantec researchers said in a blog post.

Remsec spyware lives within an organisation's network rather than being installed on individual computers, giving attackers complete control over infected machines, researchers said.

It enables keystroke logging and the theft of files and other data. Its code also contains references to Sauron, the all-seeing title character in The Lord of the Rings, Symantec said.

Strider is the nickname of the fantasy trilogy´s widely travelled main character Aragorn.

Separately, Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab has labelled the same group using the Remsec spyware as "ProjectSauron".

The newly discovered group's targets include four organizations and individuals located in Russia, an airline in China, an organization in Sweden and an embassy in Belgium, Symantec said.

Kaspersky said it had found 30 organisations hit so far in Russia, Iran and Rwanda, and possibly additional victims in Italian-speaking countries.

Remsec targets included government agencies, scientific research centres, military entities, telecoms providers and financial institutions, Kaspersky said.

"Based on the espionage capabilities of its malware and the nature of its known targets, it is possible that the group is a nation state-level attacker," Symantec said, but it did not speculate about which government might be behind the software.

Despite headlines that suggest an endless stream of new types of cyber-spying attacks, Orla Fox, Symantec´s director of security response said the discovery of a new class of spyware like Remsec is a relatively rare event, with the industry uncovering no more than one or two such campaigns per year.

Remsec shares certain unusual coding similarities with another older piece of nation state-grade malware known as Flamer, or Flame, according to Symantec.

Kaspersky agreed that the same group it calls ProjectSauron appears to have adopted the tools and techniques of other better-known spyware, including Flame, but said it does not believe that ProjectSauron and Flame are directly connected.

Flamer malware has been linked to Stuxnet, a military-grade computer virus alleged by security experts to have been used by the United States and Israel to attack Iran's nuclear programme late in the last decade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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27 injured of Quetta Attack transferred to Karachi

QUETTA/KARACHI: Twenty seven injured of the Quetta Attack were brought to a Pakistan Air Force base in Karachi on Tuesday in a C130 aircraft.

They have been admitted at a private hospital at Stadium Road for further medical treatment. According to hospital sources six of the victims are in critical condition.

Funeral prayers for most victims have been offered. Former Quetta Bar President, Baz Muhammad Kakar  was laid to rest in his hometown Muslim Bagh.

Balochistan National Party leader Dr Jahanzaib Jamaludini?s son, Sangat Jamali has been laid to rest at Noshki.

Martyred Aaj News cameraman Shahzad Khan has been laid to rest in Mastung. He leaves behind a widow and three children. Dawn News cameraman Mahmood Khan was also martyred in the attack. Another journalist injured in the line of duty include Faridullah from Dunya News.

Civil society staged a demonstration outside the Peshawar Press Club where they remembered martyrs of the attack. The Cameraman Association staged a protest outside the Faisalabad Press Club and demanded that they be provided security.

At least 70 people were killed and as many as 112 people injured when a powerful explosion ripped through Quetta?s Civil Hospital on Monday.

The explosion took place when Balochistan Bar Association President Bilal Kasi's body was being brought to the emergency department. He was gunned down at Mano Jan Road earlier today. Former Balochistan Bar President Baz Muhammad Kakar was injured in the attack. He later succumbed to his wounds at the hospital.

Police said that unknown men opened fire after the blast. Panic tore through the hospital after the incident. The blast occurred near the emergency department of the hospital.

 

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Republican national security experts: Trump would be 'dangerous' president

WASHINGTON: Fifty prominent Republican national security officials, including a former CIA director, on Monday called party nominee Donald Trump unqualified to lead the country and said he would be "the most reckless president in American history."

The statement was the latest repudiation of Trump's candidacy by veteran Republican national security specialists, and was remarkable for the harshness of its language.

"Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be president. He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world. He appears to lack basic knowledge about and belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press, and an independent judiciary," the statement said.

"None of us will vote for Donald Trump," said the statement, which noted that some signatories also have doubts about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

"From a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be president and commander in chief," said the statement, which was first reported in the New York Times. "Indeed, we are convinced that he would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country's national security and well-being."

The signatories, some of whom worked for more than one Republican president, included former Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden, who also headed the National Security Agency; former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte; and two former U.S. trade representatives, Carla Hills and Robert Zoelick.

Other signatories included former senior State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council officials who helped plan and oversee the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Trump has harshly criticized the Iraq operation, although when radio host Howard Stern asked him in 2002 if he favored invading Iraq, Trump said he guessed he did.

The statement was organized by Philip Zelikow, who served as a top adviser to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Trump responded with a statement deriding the signatories as members of "the failed Washington elite" who "deserve the blame for making the world such a dangerous place."

?These insiders ? along with Hillary Clinton ? are the owners of the disastrous decisions to invade Iraq, allow Americans to die in Benghazi, and they are the ones who allowed the rise of ISIS," he continued, using an acronym for the Islamic State militant group.

RESPONSE TO TRUMP'S REMARKS

The statement did not cite specific comments by Trump, but it clearly was a response to a series of remarks he has made questioning the need for NATO, expressing admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling for a temporary ban on immigration by Muslims, and inviting Russia to hack Clinton's private email server - which he later said was a joke.

Many of the signatories had declined to sign an open letter disputing Trump's national security qualifications that was published in March.

The statement said many Americans are frustrated with the federal government's failure to solve domestic and international problems.

"But Donald Trump is not the answer to America?s daunting challenges and to this crucial election," the statement said. "We are convinced that in the Oval Office, he would be the most reckless President in American history.

Some Democratic foreign policy experts called the statement a reminder of the divisions the New York real estate developer's nomination has sown within the Republican Party.

?This letter is signed by those who remain in the internationalist wing of the party ? many were former advisors to candidates who lost the primary fight to Trump," said Brian Katulis, a fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Clinton campaign adviser.

?Calling Trump unqualified to be commander in chief is tough, but also asserting that he?s lacking in character and understanding of our basic values is really pretty amazing," said Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council spokesman in Democratic President Barack Obama's administration. "That said, I think it?s unlikely to influence many voters, but it could give cover to Republican members of Congress and donors who want to cut the cord and move on from Trump.?

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Muslim boy sues Texas school district after arrest over homemade clock

AUSTIN, TEXAS: The family of a Muslim boy, who was arrested last year after taking a homemade digital clock to a Dallas-area high school, sued the Texas school district and the city where he once lived on Monday, saying they violated the teenager's civil rights.

The suit, filed in federal court on behalf of Ahmed Mohamed by his father, claims the Irving Independent School District and the city west of Dallas had discriminated against the teen because of his religion, which it said was a factor in his arrest.

The school district in a statement denied violating the student's rights and said it could provide no further comment because the matter was in litigation.

The family has previously demanded $15 million from the city of Irving and the school district.

The 2015 arrest of Ahmed Mohamed, then a 14-year-old bespectacled ninth-grader who dabbled in robotics and attended high school in Irving, had ignited a social media firestorm.

The 2015 arrest of Ahmed Mohamed had ignited a social media firestorm and the Twitter hashtag #IStandWithAhmed trended globally

Irving police accused him of making a hoax bomb.

"The only way to get justice is through money," Mohamed told a news conference in Texas on Monday.

After Mohamed was seen in a NASA T-shirt in handcuffs, the Twitter hashtag #IStandWithAhmed trended globally, and the teenager was praised by Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, who said: "Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest.?

A homemade clock made by Ahmed Mohamed, 14, is seen in an undated picture released by the Irving Texas Police Department

A few months after the incident, Ahmed and his family moved to Qatar after the teen has accepted an offer from the Qatar Foundation to study at its Young Innovators Program. The announcement of the move came a few hours after Ahmed visited the White House for an astronomy night hosted by President Barack Obama.

The teen, a U.S. citizen, returned to the United States a few weeks ago for summer vacation and plans to return soon to Qatar to attend a private school after receiving death threats in the United States.

"I lost my home, I lost my creativity. I used to love building things but now I can't," he said at the news conference. "I've lost my security."

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Two suspects killed in Karachi 'encounter'

KARACHI: Two suspects were killed on Monday night in a shootout with police in Karachi, officials claimed.

Officials said that an exchange of fire took place between the law enforcers and the suspects near New Sabzi Mandi area of the metropolis. As a consequence, both the suspects were gunned down.

In another 'encounter' in Mominabad area, police said, a suspect was wounded and subsequently arrested. He was being further interrogated.

Encounters like these have become a common occurring in Karachi, as the city has long been plagued by criminals associated with banned outfits and political parties.

In September 2013, law enforcement agencies (LEAs) launched a crackdown with intent to cleanse the city of all criminals.

Though, the crackdown was followed by a considerable drop in crime in the megapolis, the families of suspects and rights groups accuse the law enforcement of rights violations.

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U.S. urges Russia to halt Syria sieges; Russia slams aid politicization

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Security Council must not allow civilians on both sides of the Syrian city of Aleppo to be cut off from humanitarian aid, the United States said on Monday as Russia accused Washington of politicizing a humanitarian issue.

Insurgents effectively broke a month-long government siege of eastern, opposition-held Aleppo on Saturday, severing the primary government supply corridor and raising the prospect that government-held western Aleppo might become besieged.

The United States, Britain, France, New Zealand and Ukraine organized an informal Security Council meeting on Aleppo on Monday with briefings by a "White Helmet" rescue worker and two U.S.-based doctors from the Syrian American Medical Society who recently returned from Aleppo.

"If the fighting continues it is conceivable that civilians on both sides of Aleppo could be cut off from the basic assistance they need. We cannot allow this to happen," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said.

Citing U.N. figures, Power said Syrian government forces were to blame for nearly 80 percent of the besieged areas throughout Syria. Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the outbreak of the conflict five years ago, has been divided between government forces and rebels since the summer of 2012.

"We once again urge Russia to stop facilitating these sieges and to use its influence to press the regime to end its sieges across Syria once and for all," she said.

The United Nations aid chief has called for weekly 48-hour humanitarian pauses in fighting to deliver aid to Aleppo.

Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov accused the United States and its western colleagues of politicizing a humanitarian issue, urging them to "admit that the main cause of all of the humanitarian problems in Syria is not the counter-terrorist actions by the legitimate government of Syria.

"The propaganda and the emotional rhetoric, the unfounded accusations, the information campaign, means that we cannot move toward a political settlement in Syria," Safronkov said.

He said the first step toward ending the five-year conflict should be a pooling of efforts to combat terrorism and then a renewal of Syrian peace talks.

A crackdown by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on pro-democracy protesters five years ago sparked a civil war, and Islamic State militants have used the chaos to seize territory in Syria and Iraq.

The United States and allies began bombing Islamic State militants in Syria nearly two years ago, while Russia began air strikes in support of Assad a year ago.

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Quetta bombing: Three different claims of responsibility surface

QUETTA/KARACHI: Three different claims of responsibility have surfaced for the deadly suicide bombing in Quetta that left 70 people dead and wounded as many as 112 others pushing the nation in shock and grief.

The explosion took place when Balochistan Bar Association President Bilal Kasi's body was being brought to the emergency department. Police said that unknown men opened fire after the blast.

Panic tore through the hospital after the blast near the emergency department of the hospital. Hospital officials confirmed the death toll.

The blast sent shock waves across the country prompting civil-military leadership to reach the provincial capital to console bereaved relatives of the victims and the wounded.

Meanwhile, global terror outfit Daesh (Islamic State) and Jamaatul Ahrar, a splinter group of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), both claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Balochistan CM Sanaullah Zehri, shortly after the tragic incident, had claimed that the Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was involved in the attack. He added that it was a suicide attack.

Zehri said that the terrorists were attacking soft targets. "Even in times of war no one attacks a hospital," he said, while resolving to root out terrorists.

Further investigations into the incident continue.

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