Tweets that Defined the Outcome of KOT Vs. South Africa Twitter War

Kenyans on Twitter (KOT)

Kenyans on Twitter (KOT) are an emerging voice and defender of the interests of Kenya. In June 2012, CNN warned surfers to be aware of KOT, terming it “an influential and vocal group on Twitter, using common hashtag and blazing keyboards to ensure their African country is discussed fairly and with respect”.  A few months down the line, the same CNN was forced to apologize after finding itself on the wrong side of KOT.

 In a period of about six years, KOT has expanded tremendously and reaffirmed its resolve to defend Kenya against whoever and whatever – be it other countries, unfair reporting, parliamentarians, incompetent cabinet secretaries – and push for courses that are seen to be important or beneficial to Kenyans. Activists are now using KOT to spread their message and gain support.

In 2013 court mercilessly crushed helpless opponents including Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria reminding them to respect KOT because it rules Africa. Call it trivial or petty, but be sure KOT will never stop until an opponent is beaten properly. However, most of the tweets are usually humorous.

There is no doubt that KOT is the most dangerous Cybergang on the continent, if not the world, having beaten two worthy opponents in 2014 and 2013 – Nigeria and South Africa.

KOT vs. South Africa

The KOT vs South Africa duel on Twitter was sparked after South Africa’s Sport and Recreation Minister, Fikile Mbalula made an off-topic comment that South Africa would not be like Kenya and send athletes to the Olympics to “drown in the pool”.  Here how KOT responded. The hashtag used here was #SomeoneTellSouthAfrica.

Don't forget to share on your favorite social media!

By: Sheriff Mako On Monday, December 29, 2014

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Cyber-security Experts Humiliate the FBI for its claim that North Korea Hacked Sony Pictures

World News -- Last week, the FBI announced that it had gathered conclusive evidence to prove that the Government of North Korea had orchestrated the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures. This was followed by a verbal attack by president Obama who promised a “proportional response”.

 In an almost immediate response, North Korea issued strong statement denying the allegations that it had been involved in the Sony attack and demanded an apology from the United States. Then a few hours later, something happened -- North Korea lost its connection to the web, an incident suspected to have been orchestrated by the U.S in response to the Sony attack or a preemptive move by Pyongyang to forestall a U.S attack.

Leading experts in cybersecurity are now claiming that the FBI’s findings were unsubstantial.  The weakness in FBI’s evidence is best articulated by Marc Rogers in his article published in The Daily Beast.

The satirical movie “The Interview” was due to be released on Christmas and revolves around a plot to murder Kim Jong-Un, and thus North Korea would be interested in hacking Sony to prevent the release of the movie.

According to Marc Rogers, “the Director of security operations for DEF CON, the world’s largest hacker conference, and the principal security researcher for global CDN and DNS provider Cloudflare”, the 2014 Sony attack is likely to be work of a disgruntled employee who was due to be laid off.  In his article, Rogers tares down all the evidence provided by the FBI.

 First, he points out that the FBI’s finding that the Malware was similar to others used by North Korea is not a “remotely plausible evidence” that the attack was orchestrated by the DPRK.
By stating that, the FBI was more likely referring to Shamoon and DarkSeoul, malwares which were thought to have been launched by North Korea – findings which were also disputed by Rogers and other security experts.

He also discredited the second piece of evidence presented by the FBI and which referred to the “significant overlap between the infrastructure used in this attack and other malicious cyber activity the U.S. government has previously linked directly to North Korea.”

According to Rogers, just because an IP address has previously been used for Cybercrime activities it does not mean that the IP will always be linked to future cybercrime activities associated with it. Security experts understand that IP addresses can be permanent, however, at other times “IPs can last just a few seconds.”

 The FBI should therefore have focused on the server rather than the IP address.
The IPs found in the Malware code were all, except one, public proxies and they have all been used by “malware operators in the past”.

According to Rogers, cybercriminals routinely use proxies to conceal their identities. Therefore, the FBI can’t use that to blame North Korea for the Sony attack.
Here is a brief of the evidence produced by Rogers and other experts to prove that North Korea did NOT hack Sony.

1. The anti-North Korean bias of the movie was only brought up after the media highlighted that. The hackers never mentioned the film right from the start of the hacking activity. 
2. They dumped the data rather than use it, North Korea would have used it for propaganda or otherwise. This points to the fact that whoever hacked Sony was only interested in humiliating it. 
3. Blaming North Korea was an easier escape for the real people who orchestrated the hack or who provided the means through which it was facilitated. 
4. Blaming North Korea is also convenient for the U.S government. According to Rogers, “It’s the perfect excuse to push through whatever new, strong, cyber-laws they feel are appropriate, safe in the knowledge that an outraged public is fairly likely to support them.”
5. The last bit of evidence is particularly interesting. According to Marc Rogers, “The Hard-coded paths and passwords found in the malware shows that whoever wrote the code had extensive knowledge of Sony’s internal architecture and access to key passwords.”

There is information that Sony was planning massive layoffs and the hacking could be better blamed on a disgruntled employee rather than the DPRK.

Rogers ends his article by stating that: I am no fan of the North Korean regime. However I believe that calling out a foreign nation over a cybercrime of this magnitude should never have been undertaken on such weak evidence. The evidence used to attribute a nation state in such a case should be solid enough that it would be both admissible and effective in a court of law. As it stands, I do not believe we are anywhere close to meeting that standard.

Photo Credit:Stefan Krasowski

By: Sheriff Mako On Saturday, December 27, 2014

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North Korea went offline in a Suspected U.S Payback for Sony Attack

World News – According to the New York Times, North Korea lost it’s already struggling internet connection.  While this could be as a result of a normal failure – or Pyongyang’s preemptive measure to forestall an impeding attack – there are chances that this was U.S sponsored DDOS attack.

 The attack happened on Monday, hours after President Obama’s declaration that the U.S would take a “proportional response” to the “cybervandalism” orchestrated against Sony Pictures.

The internet connection in North Korea began to slow down over the weekend as its officials denied role in Sony attack and demanded to be part of the investigation on the incident – a request that was flatly rejected by the U.S.  By Monday, Internet connection had completely failed.

U.S officials who are actively pursuing ways of preventing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)  from sending malicious codes to other countries, including discussions with the China (provides telecommunications connections to North Korea), declined to talk about the monday failure.

Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said on Monday, “We aren’t going to discuss, you know, publicly operational details about the possible response options”.  “As we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen,” she added.

It is not clear whether the connection had been overloaded, cut, or attacked.  Experts caution that there could be many possibilities including an attempt by Pyongyang to prevent an attack by taking systems offline.

According to Chris Nicholson, Akamai’s spokesperson, it is particularly hard to pinpoint the problem given official internet protocol addresses in DPRK only stand at 1,024, thus only giving a trickle of information. In comparison the United States has billions of addresses.

By Tuesday morning, the few connections available to outside world, which are only accessed by the military and the elite, were still offline.  However, a few connections began to comeback, after more than 10 hours of internet blackout.

North Korea’s connections to the outside world are provided by the State run Star Joint Ventures, and almost all of them are run through China. Experts are also looking at a possibility where China simply cut off its stubborn neighbor.

Internet connection to the DPRK begun to wobble on Friday, with experts alleging a DDOS attack (distribution of denial of service, in which attackers flood a network with traffic until it collapses under load). If the attack is American in origin, then this would be a rare instance in which the U.S disables another nation’s internet connection.

Documents released by Snowden shows that the U.S has placed “implants” on strategic places around the world, including network connections to specific computers.

The spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying, said it was very early to know if the Sony attack originated from North Korea but reaffirmed China’s strong opposition to cyberattacks and cyberterrorism.

 Photo Credit:José Fernandes Jr

By: Sheriff Mako On Tuesday, December 23, 2014

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Exposed: A Chinese Cybercrime Racket in Nairobi

One of the Houses (Photo credit: Daily Nation)

Kenya News -- Up to 77 Chinese nationals were arrested in Nairobi for allegedly operating a covert illegal cyber-command center. This involved three houses within a radius of 1km in the posh Runda area of Nairobi. In one of the houses, extensive equipment and software said to be capable of hacking into bank accounts, Mpesa accounts and even ATMs was found.

The racket was accidentally uncovered after the police responded to an incident in which fire had broken out in one of the houses, killing one person. According to police accounts, when they arrived at the house, they found the foreigners crowded in one room that had the communication equipment.

Typical of properties in the area, the compounds were electric wire fenced, and CCTV cameras installed at the gates.  37 of the 77 were arrested earlier, and on Wednesday, detectives raided one of the houses arresting 40 more Chinese Nationals.

The seriousness of the issue is underscored by the fact that Cabinet Secretaries for ICT (Fred Matiang’I) and Foreign Affairs (Amina Mohammed) have already paid a visit to the three houses, in which the equipment is still intact.

The discovery is a breakthrough in the war against cybercrime in Kenya. The country has been facing increased cybercrime events in the past months.

Nairobi Beijing Relations

Nairobi has enjoyed cordial relations with Beijing for close to a decade now and there are economic and infrastructural gains to show for that. But the surge in the number of Chinese nationals in the country has inevitably led to a few problems. For instance, a number of Chinese nationals have been arrested in Nairobi for selling or hawking substandard goods from China.

The impact of the new finding remains to be seen, however, the Chinese Government, through its embassy, has pleaded with Kenya for a fair trial against the 77.  Investigations are still underway but the 37 who were first arrested have already appeared before the court.

By: Sheriff Mako On Sunday, December 07, 2014

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Blogging: The Cheapest Option Explained

Internet Tricks -- There are many small business owners and/or individuals who have in one way or another wanted to blog so badly but are held back because they think its cumbersome. Well, it's not.  

This tutorial offers a step by step easy process you can follow to put up a fully customized blog that is completely linked to social media.

Step 1: Gather Resources

ü  Computer and working internet connection

ü  Facebook like page - create a Facebook page for your blog. It should have the same title as your blog.

ü  Gmail account - open a Gmail account if you don’t have one already and activate your Google+ profile

ü  Open a twitter account if you do not have one, plus any other social media platform you want to link to your blog.

ü  Cash for online transaction - Get some cash into your PayPal account or credit card to purchase a domain (if you are not conversant with online payment systems contact me and I will guide you for free)

Step 2: Create a blog on blogger

By: Sheriff Mako On Saturday, December 21, 2013

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10 Easy Ways to Increase Likes for Your Facebook Business Page

With more than 1.15 billion users as of 2013, Facebook is the largest social media site and there is no question about its relevance in today’s business world. If you want to tell people about your brand, establish a strong fan base and generate leads, then Facebook is provides the best avenue for that.  However, a dismissive number of likes will definitely not help in the achievement of such objectives.  

Given the fact that your updates are only seen by those who like your page (unless they are shared), growing your “likes” is really important if your business messages have to reach a wider audience. In fact, Facebook “likes” have been likened to building an email subscription list by some experts.  

Here are some of the best tips you can implement to instantly grow your facebook “likes”

By: Sheriff Mako On Tuesday, December 10, 2013

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6 Ways to Make LinkedIn Work for You

Internet Tricks -- Social media has emerged as a powerful tool for personal branding, thanks to the robust growth in social technologies in the last decade. If you are a professional who wants to be visible to potential employers, then you have to develop a personal brand that reflects the desired “unique promise of value”. And where else can you showcase this if it’s not on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a powerful social networking site that was launched in 2003. Since then, it has grown into a powerful professional networking hub with more than 259 million users around the world as of 2013

You will agree that opportunities in today’s world are very competitive. You really have to use every strategy and tactic to remain ahead of the park. Some professionals say social media is a waste of time, but that’s not true, at least when it comes to LinkedIn. So if you are not making effective use of the largest network of professionals in the world then you losing out big time.

Here are eight 8 ways to build your personal brand on LinkedIn.

By: Sheriff Mako On Friday, November 15, 2013

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