[tomek@vz]

A sustained cyber campaign targeting customer devices hosted on Amazon Web Services infrastructure in Western countries has been traced to Sandworm, a hacking group tied to Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, according to findings published by Amazon's threat intelligence team. The five-year operation represents a prolonged state-sponsored effort targeting cloud-connected infrastructure.
CJ Moses, Amazon's chief information security officer, confirmed the discovery in a December 15 analysis, describing the campaign as "a significant evolution in critical infrastructure targeting." Moses, who previously served as technical lead for computer and network intrusion analysis at the FBI's Cyber Division, said the attackers had "taken a tactical pivot where what appear to be misconfigured customer network edge devices became the primary initial access vector."

> Russian hackers exploited misconfigured customer devices hosted on AWS for years, Amazon says

Japan's government recently compelled Apple to introduce iOS App Store policies mirroring those in Europe, but the Cupertino firm has repeated its strategy of employing loopholes and new fees. Developers, including Epic Games, claim that Apple has essentially eliminated any benefit to stepping outside of its walled garden.
Apple has begun allowing iOS developers in Japan to distribute apps outside of the App Store and direct users toward alternative payment processors. However, the new policies come with various strings attached, drawing predictable condemnation from Epic Games CEO and frequent Apple opponent Tim Sweeney.

> Apple's App Store "freedom" in Japan comes with strings attached, obviously