A five-year backdoor and the eternal struggle with end-to-end encryption are topics that have not been discussed in the media

I continue to talk about what is left behind the Russian technological sites. Today, everything is in the context of information security and work with personal data.

Space for cyber espionage

The BPFdoor backdoor went unnoticed for more than five years. Last year PwC published a reportbut on the problem of Western sites attention was paid only in May, although it would seem that new malware appears every day, and they are actively discussed.

But BPFdoor is special – it does not need open ports, it is not blocked by firewalls, it accepts commands from any IP address. The backdoor uses the Berkeley Packet Filter sniffer at the network interface level. Is fixed in the system through a vulnerability CVE-2019-3010. It allows you to elevate user privileges. Next, binaries are downloaded to the device, and this whole process is masked. For those who want to understand the code – there is malware sources (outdated 2018 version).

In fact, BPFdoor is a tool for attacks on corp. infrastructure. It is still possible to calculate it, although it is difficult. His footprints discovered in organizations from the USA, South Korea, Turkey, India and many others. In Elastic note two key markers of malware. The first is to launch binaries and network connections from the /dev/shm working directory. The second is the appearance of an empty PID file in /var/run.

The battle for end-to-end encryption

This topic is a sore spot in many countries. In the UK, Parliament has been considering legislation for several years that would oblige telecoms to transmit decrypted data on demand. To public outrage, the government answers PR campaign for 800 thousand dollars. And in Australia, a law restricting end-to-end has been in effect since 2018. There, decrypted messages from instant messengers are available to law enforcement officers upon request. the initiative so far subjected to serious criticism.

In the Netherlands, they follow in the footsteps of “colleagues” and advocate for “secure backdoors” in instant messengers. A hearing on the issue was held in early June, but the country’s economy ministry blocked the amendments amid public outrage. In addition, the big players in this niche threatened leave the country. In general, the term “secure backdoor” is it’s an oxymoron. The weakening of cryptography sooner or later leads to unpleasant consequences, which confirm dozens of cases. Moreover, there are other ways to deal with malicious content on the web. For example, you can search for suspicious accounts by metadata.

There is such a GDPR, remember?

The European Center for Digital Rights (NYOB) published a note discussing the situation around the GDPR. For four years, the law did not guarantee the security of personal data. Many companies continue to collect information about users without their consent. There are several reasons for this.

One of the key ones is the lack of consistent control. At first, regulators issued multimillion-dollar fines, but now they have slowed down. Litigation is slow. NYOB has filed over fifty lawsuits, all of which are still pending. The situation is aggravated by the fact that judicial practice differs from country to country. Everything will develop in this direction.

Thus, in the United States, more and more states are following the path of California with their CCPA and implement analogues of the GDPR. For example, Colorado Privacy Actadopted last July. But corporations and social networks are campaigning to weaken legislation in this area. Lobby managed to achieve repeal of the relevant bill in the state of Connecticut. Washington Data Privacy Bill did not score the required number of votes for the third time.

What else is a municipal Internet

Appear consumer Internet cooperatives. They offer access to the network by purchasing traffic from federal operators. The growing interest in them is understandable – the regulator has not yet tightened the screws here, and cooperatives are saving on meeting the requirements of the law for Internet providers. How long they will last is unknown. Regulators can tighten laws in this niche at any time.

A similar scheme works in America, where remote towns and villages are experiencing difficulties with access to the Internet. Everything rests on the cost of infrastructure. It is simply unprofitable for operators to pull fiber optic cables to sparsely populated areas. To solve the problem, the municipalities themselves are laying communication lines. The providers then simply lease the bandwidth for open access models. The number of such networks is reflected in special map and almost reached a thousand.

It is worth noting here that initiatives to form such networks are opposed by a serious lobby. Seventeen states at the legislative level forbid local communities to invest in this kind of infrastructure (or seriously limit opportunities). Let’s see how it will be with us.

This is a tentative overview of the situation. If you would like to supportsubscribe in the profile. What else do I have on Habré and in the cart: