Lance James Archives - s0x • Austin Managed IT Services

7 Jun, 2021

Adventures in Contacting the Russian FSB

Cybersecurity A Little Sunshine, BadB, C#, CryptoPro, fbi, Federal Security Service, FSB, GOST, Lance James, Treasury Department, Unit221B, virustotal, Vladislav Horohorin, Yandex

KrebsOnSecurity recently had occasion to contact the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In the process of doing so, I encountered a small snag: The FSB’s website said in order to contact them securely, I needed to download and install an encryption and virtual private networking (VPN) appliance that is flagged by at least 20 antivirus products as malware. The reason I contacted the FSB — one of the successor agencies to the Russian KGB — ironically enough had to do with security concerns raised about the FSB’s own preferred method of being contacted. …

17 May, 2021

Try This One Weird Trick Russian Hackers Hate

Cybersecurity Allison Nixon, Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, Cybereason, DarkSide ransomware, fbi, Lance James, Microsoft Windows, Ransomware, rEvil, Security Tools, Sodinokibi, twitter, Unit221B

In a Twitter discussion last week on ransomware attacks, KrebsOnSecurity noted that virtually all ransomware strains have a built-in failsafe designed to cover the backsides of the malware purveyors: They simply will not install on a Microsoft Windows computer that already has one of many types of virtual keyboards installed — such as Russian or Ukrainian. So many readers had questions in response to the tweet that I thought it was worth a blog post exploring this one weird cyber defense trick. …

s0x • Austin Managed IT Services

s0x • Austin Managed IT Services

Tag Archives: Lance James

Adventures in Contacting the Russian FSB

Try This One Weird Trick Russian Hackers Hate