Most Notable Cybersecurity Leak of 2024 So Far - The I-Soon Leak Reveals a Trove of Information About Chinese State-Supported Hacking Operations

I-Soon (上海安洵) is a Shanghai based Chinese info-sec company that contracts for many Chinese government agencies like the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security, and People’s Liberation Army. A trove of documents and chat messages between employees was leaked on GitHub on 16 February showing inner workings of the company, targeted organizations and fees earned from hacking them (Apparently collecting data from the Vietnam Ministry of Economy was worth $55 000 and access to a Vietnamese traffic police private website was worth $15 000), technical documents showing custom snooping devices, people complaining about low wages, and a discussion about receiving zero-day vulnerabilities from the Chinese government. Continue reading

Charting a Course to Cybersecurity: The Maritime Industry's Response to Growing Threats

Over the last year I have participated in quite many discussions about cyber security in maritime industry. There is a trend of growing number of cyber attacks in the industry, which have caused lots of disruptions and financial losses for companies and organizations. The shipping industry is also particularly vulnerable to these threats due to the long service lives of onboard systems, growing use of cloud-based solutions by equipment manufacturers and shipowners both in new constructions and also as additions to in-service vessels to enable remote maintenance and collection of data. Continue reading