Last week, LightCyber released its “2016 Cyber Weapons” report, a study that discusses the top tools attackers use once they penetrate a network.

According to the LightCyber study, “it turns out that once attackers gain access to a network, the vast majority of activity makes use of benign processes and tools, not malware.”

The study claims that 99% of post-intrusion cyberattack activities didn’t employ malware, but rather leveraged standard networking, IT admin and other tools on an improvisational basis. While malware may commonly be used to compromise a host initially, once inside a network, the bad guys typically didn’t use malware.

LightCyber says that attackers can “leverage ordinary end-user programs such as web browsers, file transfer clients and native system tools for command and control and data exfiltration activity.” By using these tools, attackers can remain undetected and regain access even if the malware used to initially enter the network is identified and removed.

One section of the report examines “The Sequence of a Targeted Attack.”

• Initial Intrusion (Exploit and Malware): During this phase, the attacker gains a foothold into the organization. External attackers often use exploits to gain access to private computer systems, and malware to perform opportunistic attacks, disrupt computer operations, or gather sensitive information. This report focuses on malware for this stage, regardless of how the infection happened.
• Command and Control: The communication between a compromised internal host and an attacker.
• Reconnaissance: Exploration from a compromised internal host to the organizational network looking for attack vectors and relevant resources for lateral movement.
• Lateral Movement: Lateral action from a compromised internal host to strengthen the attacker foothold inside the organizational network, to control additional machines, and eventually control strategic assets.
• Data Exfiltration: Transfer of sensitive information from a compromised internal host to the attacker.

LightCyber says that during the initial stage, the attacker tries to penetrate the target organization’s network by compromising a host. One of the first signs of an intrusion may be an infected client “phoning home” by trying to contact a command and control server. To detect this activity, organizations can profile normal user and device activity, in order to be able to detect when a device repeatedly attempts to access a rare destination. However, LightCyber observes that “command and control activity can be easily disguised since the attacker owns both points of the communications. For example, an attacker can use popular services such as web-based email or social media sites like Twitter or Reddit for command and control.”

As LightCyber concludes, “The most mundane applications, in the wrong hands, can be used for malicious purposes.”

Part of a story in the National Post about the looming disruption to Canada’s postal service caught my eye.

The post office, a crown corporation, … now delivers two out of every three purchases that Canadians make online. Canada Post grew its parcel revenue by 12.5 per cent in the first three months of 2016.

Last week, I wrote that Canada should have “a Chief Digital Economy Officer, charged with looking across all departments and agencies, intervening when policies are at cross-purposes with advancement of an innovation agenda.”

Navdeep Bains, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) has been pushing businesses to go online and move his Innovation Agenda forward. With 2 out of 3 online purchases being delivered by Canada Post, how will a postal disruption impact adoption of e-commerce by Canadian consumers and businesses?

Has the Innovation Agenda been part of the calculus for the Canada Post negotiating team?

In the wake of last week’s “Brexit” vote, Janice Stein (professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs) wrote an interesting article on the TVO website, entitled “Lessons from Brexit on why referendums and democracy don’t mix.”

How well do referendums serve democracy? Not well, whether they fail or pass. Not well, because leaders always have to simplify complex decisions into a “yes” or “no” question. Not well, because referendums often give prominence to issues that are not at the top of voters’ priorities, as this one did.

She writes that complex matters are better suited for resolution by elected representatives who have the ability, through party leaders, to craft compromises. “Leaders in a referendum campaign have every incentive to oversimplify and over-dramatize, playing on people’s fears to get out the vote.”

I couldn’t help but think of populist campaigns that we have seen in the telecom sector, with some regulatory bodies and legislators crafting policy based on satisfying the loudest voices, rather than economic principles.

We need to be cautious pandering to populist waves, special interest groups that reduce complex issues to overly simplistic slogans.

It is for all these reasons that we elect representatives who form governments. When the system is working well, parties talk across the aisle and find creative compromises that leave no one fully satisfied but no one fully dissatisfied.

It is also worth reading an article in Atlantic Magazine, “How American Politics went Insane.”

Trump, however, didn’t cause the chaos. The chaos caused Trump. What we are seeing is not a temporary spasm of chaos but a chaos syndrome.

Chaos syndrome is a chronic decline in the political system’s capacity for self-organization. It begins with the weakening of the institutions and brokers—political parties, career politicians, and congressional leaders and committees—that have historically held politicians accountable to one another and prevented everyone in the system from pursuing naked self-interest all the time. As these intermediaries’ influence fades, politicians, activists, and voters all become more individualistic and unaccountable. The system atomizes. Chaos becomes the new normal—both in campaigns and in the government itself.
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Americans have been busy demonizing and disempowering political professionals and parties, which is like spending decades abusing and attacking your own immune system. Eventually, you will get sick.

Canada can’t become a global leader in an innovation economy by simply following popular opinion. As Canadians respond to calls for submissions for Canada’s Innovation Agenda, we’ll look for greater depth than over-simplified slogans.

Professor Stein concludes:

Pure democracy is highly overrated. It is no accident that systems of pure proportional representation generally produce dysfunctional, sclerotic governments that fit badly with our needs. Winston Churchill put it as only he could: “Democracy is the worst of all systems, except for its alternatives.” In the wake of the vote in his beloved Britain, that wise man might now say: “Any alternative to pure democracy is better.”

For Canada to become “a world leader in turning ideas into solutions, science into technologies, skills into jobs and start-up companies into global successes,” we need our political leaders to lead.

I’d like to take more time this summer to collect thoughts on how Canada can create a better environment to encourage more innovation.

At The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit earlier this month, Namir Anani, CEO of ICTC, hosted a panel called “Strengthening Canada’s Digital Advantage in a Hyper-connected Global Economy” which provided a number of valuable discussion points.

Earlier this week, I wrote about “Powering an innovation economy“. In that post, I said “Real innovation needs government to get out of the way, allowing successful businesses to thrive and letting unsuccessful ones fail.”

That post also cited another earlier piece called “Don’t do stupid stuff,” in which I wrote “Increasingly, it appears that Canada needs a digital conscience in Ottawa.”

Perhaps that conscience can be embodied in the form of a Chief Digital Economy Officer, charged with looking across all departments and agencies, intervening when policies are at cross-purposes with advancement of an innovation agenda. As I suggested yesterday on Twitter, we might want to look at issues through an innovation economy lens, asking “Are we helping or hindering innovation?” Are we encouraging adoption of digital technologies? Are we establishing an overall environment that encourages entrepreneurs to locate in Canada and create jobs in Canada.

Every time we have governments handing out cash to one company as an incentive to create jobs, I wonder if it represents an admission that Canada is not competitive on its own. Should we celebrate companies that have a business model that is dependent on special concessions and hand-outs or should we fix the structural problems that made those hand-outs necessary?

Do handouts demonstrate failed policy? As I have asked before, are we picking winners and creating more losers?

Sure, those ceremonial cheques create a classic political photo-op. What politician doesn’t like handing out other people’s money under the guise of creating jobs? But, think of where these subsidies come from: out of the pockets of companies that are succeeding at being profitable without a hand-out. How does it encourage entrepreneurship to create a system that transfers taxes on profitable firms to companies that aren’t? What behaviour are we rewarding?

In the meantime, we have government agencies at various levels that have imposed “convenience fees” on online transactions, but waive fees for paying in person. What behaviour are we rewarding?

And who could forget my favourite piece of political pandering, the legislation that led to my post “Don’t do stupid stuff,” a legislated ban on charging for paper bills, found at Section 27.2 of the Telecom Act: “Any person who provides telecommunications services shall not charge a subscriber for providing the subscriber with a paper bill.” Read the post I wrote at the time to get a taste for how this was so completely unnecessary. What behaviour are we rewarding?

Can a digital conscience help reward the kinds of behaviour to guide us toward a more innovative economy?

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[Update: June 22, 10:45am] The government has launched its “interactive Innovation Agenda website.”

The website, Canada.ca/Innovation, allows Canadians to share their ideas for positioning Canada as a world leader in turning ideas into solutions, science into technologies, skills into jobs and start-up companies into global successes.

Thanks to CPAC, a number of sessions from The 2016 Canadian Telecom Summit are available for viewing on-demand. As post production is completed, I will add the sessions to the listing below:

• Public Record: Regulatory Blockbuster
• Public Record: A Conversation with FCC and CRTC Commissioners
• Podium: Manon Brouillette, President & CEO, Videotron
• Podium: Daniel Therrien, Privacy Commissioner of Canada
• Podium: Philippe Jetté, President, Cogeco Peer 1
• Public Record: Personalizing Entertainment & Information

The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit will take place June 5-7, 2017. Mark the dates in your calendar and plan to be there.