Kim Zetter / is on Nostr

Journalist - cybersecurity/national security. Author COUNTDOWN TO ZERO DAY: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon. Speaker/Signal. Substack publication is called Zero Day. Find it here: https://zetter.substack.com

Last Notes

2025-01-08 18:16:48

Last month as drones over NY/NJ made headlines, a radiation-monitoring site reported spikes in radiation in NY, seemingly supporting a theory that the drones were tracking a dirty bomb on the loose there. Only the spikes were fake. I wrote about how the fake info got reported and how it spread on social media
https://www.zetter-zeroday.com/anatomy-of-a-nuclear-scare/

2023-12-07 05:54:55

Meta Facebook Messenger is rolling out end-to-end encryption by default. "Private communication for several billion people just got a lot more secure. Messenger has begun the migration for two-party chats ...and E2EE group chat will soon be on the way"
https://alecmuffett.com/article/108588

2023-11-17 18:42:32

BluSky invite code for anyone who wants it: bsky-social-qh4fc-egei2

2023-08-17 17:18:34

Prosecutors have accused a Florida journalist of violating the CFAA anti-hacking law to obtain and leak un-aired Tucker Carlson clips that embarrassed Fox News. Attorneys for Timothy Burke say he hacked nothing, and that the clips were publicly available and unencrypted.
Mark Rasch, one of the attorneys on Burke's defense team, says prosecutors are using a “novel and unsupported” interpretation of the CFAA to assert a crime that doesn’t exist under the law and justify the raid on Burke's home office. Rasch understand the CFAA better than most. He's a former federal prosecutor who helped craft CFAA. I looked into the case:
https://zetter.substack.com/p/did-a-journalist-violate-hacking

2023-08-08 18:03:16

Yesterday I published a lengthy story for WIRED about the mystery around radiation spikes that occurred at Chernobyl during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I've just posted a new edition of my Zero Day publication with additional information, analysis and images.
https://zetter.substack.com/p/radiation-spikes-at-chernobyl-a-mystery

2023-08-07 18:35:19

Exclusive: After Russian troops seized control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant last year, radiation sensors in the region started recording alarming spikes. The official Ukrainian explanation was that the spikes were caused by Russian military vehicles stirring up radioactive dust in the area. But that explanation has been disputed. Now the mystery deepens. Security researcher Ruben Santamarta has discovered suspicious patterns in the sensor data that suggest the data was possibly manipulated to fabricate the radiation spikes. Experts agree with him that it seems the most likely explanation. The question is if the data was manipulated, who did it and why?
Ruben will be presenting his findings on Thursday at the BlackHat security conference and will release a 100-page paper showing his research.
But you can read my detailed story about the findings and mystery surrounding the spikes here:
https://www.wired.com/story/chernobyl-radiation-spike-mystery/

2023-06-28 20:12:28

Last week the SEC sent Wells notices to SolarWinds employees warning they may face legal action over the company's 2020 hack. But it's slipped the attention of many that one of the people who got a notice was the company's CISO - a very rare and significant move that indicates more CISO's could face similar action in the future. A Wells notice indicates the SEC has found evidence the recipient of the notice violated federal securities laws and the SEC may bring civil enforcement action against them. If the SEC does bring action, it could result in a monetary fine and a prohibition against the person from ever being an officer or director of a public company in the future. Here's my story about it:
https://zetter.substack.com/p/sec-targets-solarwinds-ciso-for-possible

2023-05-02 14:29:00

I spent a year digging into the SolarWinds hack - talking with SolarWinds/Mandiant/Microsoft and others -- to bring you this detailed story of how the hackers pulled off the boldest, most sophisticated supply-chain hack in history ... and how they got caught. https://www.wired.com/story/the-untold-story-of-solarwinds-the-boldest-supply-chain-hack-ever/

2023-04-12 13:52:16

Two years ago on Super Bowl weekend in Tampa Bay, a Florida sheriff and city manager held a press conference to tell the world that hackers had penetrated the city's water control system and increased the lye to a dangerous level. "Somebody hacked into the system. Not just once, but twice and controlled the system, took control of the mouse.," the sheriff told reporters. For the next two years media outlets tried to get an update on the case but the sheriff, the city, and the FBI would only say the investigation was ongoing. Now it turns out that the FBI had in truth concluded its investigation within four months of the incident and determined that no hack had occurred and that likely a city worker had mistakenly altered the level of lye. But no one bothered to tell the public or give reporters the update they had been seeking. https://www.wfla.com/8-on-your-side/employee-error-oldsmars-water-system-wasnt-hacked-former-city-manager-says/

2023-03-27 07:24:48

Israel is going into a general strike -- trade union leader and businesses have all joined the strike against Bibi's plan to take control of the judiciary.