![]() Their research focused on the evolutionary history of the group and used both genetics and head structure to delve into the relationships among the species. More recently, a group of herpetologists, led by PhD candidate Chad Keates, conducted one of the most thorough genetic studies of the genus to date. Past studies focused on these snakes and their relatives, relied on only one representative from each species of Psammophylax. The spotted skaapsteker, Psammophylax rhombeatus, is the most southerly distributed species of the genus, and is one of the most commonly encountered snakes in the Eastern Cape, and more specifically, East London. They are so named for the erroneous belief that they commonly bite and kill sheep. Psammophylax is the genus (similar to your surname) name of widespread African snakes commonly referred to as skaapstekers or “sheep‐stabbers”. This seemed to be the case, for instance, with the takedown of the Hive ransomware group in January.A research team from Rhodes University and the Port Elizabeth Museum has discovered a new species and genus of snake, and have named them in honour of two reptile scientists (herpetologists) from the Eastern Cape. This has effectively crippled the malicious infrastructure and permanently stopped the perpetrators from creating new ones. Nevertheless, these disruptions have sometimes led to the complete dismantling of botnets. ![]() It’s a great strategy, although in some cases it resulted in only a limited, temporary disruption until the bad guys were able to set up new, different botnets.” “Over the last decade or so, law enforcement has done similar bot takedowns by infiltrating the network or command and control servers. However, Roger Grimes, a data-driven defense evangelist at KnowBe4, expressed a milder opinion on the discovery. “The Justice Department has taken the gloves off, and this disruption serves as a harbinger of more aggressive actions to come,” Kellermann added. ![]() Tom Kellermann, SVP of cyber strategy at Contrast Security, called the operation a “historic blow” to the Russian cyber-espionage apparatus. ![]() The technical details will help many organizations find and shut down the malware globally.” “Snake infrastructure has spread around the world. “Russian government actors have used this tool for years for intelligence collection,” commented Rob Joyce, NSA director of cybersecurity. The Snake malware is installed on external infrastructure nodes for further exploitation. The Snake malware infrastructure has been discovered by the international coalition on multiple continents, including North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, with involvement from the United States and Russia.Īccording to an advisory published by the agencies on Tuesday, the FSB targeted various industries in the US, including education, small businesses, media, local government, finance, manufacturing and telecommunications. Read more on Snake: Are We Losing the War Against Ransomware? They obtained this information from a victim located in a NATO country. ![]() Several intelligence agencies, including the NSA, FBI, CISA, CNMF, CCCS, NCSC-UK, ACSC and NCSC-NZ, have attributed the Snake operations to a specific unit within Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) Center 16.Ĭyber-criminals reportedly used Snake to retrieve and remove confidential documents related to international relations and diplomatic communications. The National Security Agency ( NSA) and various international partner agencies have discovered infrastructure connected with the sophisticated Russian cyber-espionage tool Snake in over 50 countries worldwide. ![]()
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