Cybersecurity - Page 8

U.S. Considers Cyberwar Sanctions Against Russia, China

Hard on the heels of reports that China and Russia are busy using stolen U.S. government data to identify American intelligence officers and assets, comes word that the Obama administration is considering retaliatory sanctions against Russian and Chinese targets.

REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Files

Digital Warfare Takes Out ISIS’s ‘Secret Weapon’ Hacker

More details are emerging about Junaid Hussain, the twenty-something British expatriate who served as a key player in the Islamic State’s online army until a U.S. drone strike took him out this week. According to an article at the Wall Street Journal, Hussain was involved in most of ISIS’s hacking and social media exploits.

IRAQ, - : An image grab taken from a propaganda video released on March 17, 2014 by the Is

Chinese Hackers Also Hit United Airlines, Stole Travel Information

United Airlines has announced a penetration of its computer security in May and June, with investigators saying it was most likely the same Chinese squad that carried out the “cyber Pearl Harbor” attack on the Office of Personnel Management, along with an operation against health insurance company Anthem. It appears the Chinese raiders made off with a sizable amount of flight information, including passenger lists, from United.

The Associated Press

CyberWar: Israel’s Cyber-defense Has Silicon Valley Spinoffs

Internet security is becoming a major geopolitical issue. This year, Israel’s government established a national authority to help oversee protection of computer systems with sensitive civilian and military information. According to SiliconValley.com, Israel could be the first nation in the world to define mandatory cyberdefense steps for financial institutions.

The Associated Press

From Bob Corker to Obama, Iran Deal is ‘Failure Theater’ All the Way Down

Secretary of State John Kerry appeared before the Senate on Thursday to defend his administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. As expected, he took a great deal of heat from irate Republicans, plus a few skeptical Democrats, notably Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey. The headline-grabbing moment came when Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said John Kerry had been “fleeced” by the Iranians.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

NYT: NSA Hosts Summer Camp to Attract Young Talent

Middle- and high-school-age students, as well as some teachers, are learning hacking techniques, courtesy of a new cybersecurity summer camp program supported by the National Security Agency (NSA), The New York Times (NYT) reports.

AP/Erica Clements

Cybersecurity Report: OPM Hackers May Have Added Data as Well as Stole It

A report on the breach of OPM’s computers systems by the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) says hackers did not have to work very hard to gain entry. The report also raises a worrisome new possibility about what hackers might have been doing during the months they had undetected access: adding false data to the systems even as they were stealing from it.

Reboot

Hackers Threaten to Expose Affair Website Users Unless It Shuts Down

AshleyMadison is a website catering to married people who wish to have an affair. They claim to have 37 million users, and now all of their personal data is in the hands of a hacker group called The Impact Team, which is threatening to expose all those users unless AshleyMadison and a sister site called EstablishedMen are taken down.

ashley madison

UCLA Health Data Unencrypted–and No Policy to Report Lost Laptops

It is not surprising that hackers broke into the UCLA’s health system to try to gain access to some of the 4.5 million patients’ records, given the sheer scale of personal health data that has been compromised. But what is shocking is that those records were never protected with a basic encryption, and lost laptops were not required to be reported. Although UCLA said there was no evidence at this time that any patient files were taken, the investigation is ongoing.

Ronald Reagan UCLA Hospital (King of Hearts / Wikimedia Commons)

OPM Data Breach Expands to 25.7 Million Americans

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has revealed that hackers stole personal information on 25.7 million Americans. That information included Social Security numbers, financial histories, mental health records, and in over a million cases, fingerprints.

REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Files

‘Anonymous’ Claims Responsibility for Cyber Attack on Canadian Government

Websites run by the Canadian government were attacked on Wednesday, causing widespread service interruptions. The “Anonymous” hacker collective claimed responsibility for the attack, describing it as a protest against the recent passage of a controversial anti-terrorism bill, which the hackers denounced as “a clear violation of the universal declaration of human rights.”

REUTERS/YVES HERMAN

ISIS Dumps 40,000 Tweets a Day on France

The French government has released some stunning figures to illustrate the intensity of ISIS recruiting efforts in their country. There are at least 2,600 websites in French, run by the terror state and its supporters, and they generate over 40,000 Twitter messages per day, reaching some 2.8 million followers.

Twitter

Potential TurboTax Class Action Lawsuits Allege Mass Online Tax Fraud

Millions of TurboTax users will be troubled by a lawsuit that was filed Monday in San Francisco against Intuit, Inc. claiming that when the firm knew TurboTax’s lax software security protections were allowing a huge spike in tax refund theft, TurboTax failed to correct weaknesses or notify customers about ongoing risks.

TurboTax (Mike Mozart / Flickr / CC)

Burr Touts Cybersecurity Legislation In GOP Weekly Address

Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) touted the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 in Saturday’s GOP Weekly Address. Transcript (via ABC News Radio) as Follows: Hello, I’m Senator Richard Burr from the great state of North Carolina and I’m honored to chair

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Sen Johnson: US Must Address Cybersecurity Threats

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) emphasized the importance of passing information-sharing legislation designed to enhance cybersecurity during the GOP Weekly Address on Saturday. Transcript (via ABC News Radio) as Follows: “Hi, I’m Senator Ron Johnson, from the great state of Wisconsin.

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WH Website Has Security Snafu During Obama’s Cybersecurity Summit

The White House website suffered security breaches this weekend at the same time President Obama was addressing a Stanford University cybersecurity summit, an unfortunately ill-timed incident for an administration many see as languishing in the fight to protect the nation’s cyber institutions.

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak