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WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee warns that America is dealing with “the highest threat level we have ever faced in this country.” Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the threat is coming from the radicalization of young people and foreign fighters heading to Iraq and Syria to join terror groups. “They’re very good at communicating through separate avenues where it’s very difficult to track,” Nunes said. “That’s why when you get a young person who is willing to get into these chat rooms, go on the Internet and get...

Truncated from the full Title :************************************************************************************* – Testing Cyber Weapons? Security Criminals Trying to Take an Entire Country Offline with Massive DDoS Attacks – Testing Cyber Weapons? By Shaikh Rafia Posted 3 hours ago 19Shares Cyber criminals are now using Mirai malware to take down the entire internet infrastructure of Liberia. The African nation was targeted by the same cyber weapon that caused the largest ever cyber attack of the history, just two weeks ago.Mirai malware was used in October to launch a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that affected some of the world’s biggest online sites and services. The attack was launched using...

UKExpress: PUTIN’S WARNING – Now Russia tells the US ‘if you want a war you will get one EVERYWHERE’ RUSSIA has warned the US it will give America a war if it wants one after Joe Biden called for an all-out cyber assault on Kremlin emails.

The Obama administration is threatening to launch a vast cyber war against Russia in response to the country’s alleged interference with the presidential election. Vice President Joe Biden told NBC News Friday that “we’re sending a message” to Russian President Vladimir Putin and that the wide-ranging “clandestine” cyber operation will take place. “We’re sending a message,” Biden said during an interview with “Meet the Press” that will air on Sunday. “We have the capacity to do it. It will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact,” The vice president belittled...

Malaysia has arrested a man on charges of hacking into the personal information of more than a thousand U.S. security officials and handing the database to the Islamic State militant group in Syria so it could target the individuals. The 20-year-old from Kosovo, who entered Malaysia in August 2014 to study computer science and forensics at a private institute in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, will be extradited to the United States, police said in a statement on Thursday night. "Early investigation found the suspect communicated with one of the right hand man (leader) of IS terrorist group in Syria to...

What is cyber warfare and why should you care? That question was one that this writer asked himself many times. I thought that it had to do with someone stealing my personal identity. You know, opening a charge account in my name or emptying out my bank account. I, probably like many reading this, paid no attention to it until recently being hit with someone emptying out my bank account. And then, like the proverbial person who closes the gate after all of the horses have escaped, did I try to learn more about it. While there are no easy...

And guess where they’re located? That’s right: Facebook’s former building.I couldn’t make it up if I tried.Via: Bloomberg:An organization like the CIA or FBI can have thousands of different databases, each with its own quirks: financial records, DNA samples, sound samples, video clips, maps, floor plans, human intelligence reports from all over the world. Gluing all that into a coherent whole can take years. Even if that system comes together, it will struggle to handle different types of data—sales records on a spreadsheet, say, plus video surveillance images. What Palantir (pronounced Pal-an-TEER) does, says Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner...

Thornberry Fears Bureaucracy Hamstrings Cyber Vs. ISIS WASHINGTON: Why does the internet still work in Raqqa? That simple question about the Syrian capital of Daesh, the self-proclaimed Islamic State, posed today by retired fighter pilot Rep. Martha McSally, goes to the heart of how the military will use — or refrain from using — cyber weapons. It goes to deep suspicions that President Obama’s swollen National Security Council staff is micromanaging the military. No less a figure than House Armed Services Committee chairman Mac Thornberry voiced deep concern that we are bureaucratizing the cyber force at birth. All too often...

The U.S. Air Force has lost records concerning 100,000 investigations into everything from workplace disputes to fraud. A database that hosts files from the Air Force’s inspector general and legislative liaison divisions became corrupted last month, destroying data created between 2004 and now, service officials said. Neither the Air Force nor Lockheed Martin, the defense firm that runs the database, could say why it became corrupted or whether they’ll be able to recover the information. Lockheed tried to recover the information for two weeks before notifying the Air Force, according to a service statement. The Air Force has begun asking...

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has accused Russia of engaging in ongoing cyber warfare. The aim, he said, is both to steal information and carry out sabotage against its enemies — both real and imagined. On Friday Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) said that in the past year or so Russia had launched attacks against the German parliament, NATO members and French TV. […] Germany’s lower house of parliament was attacked last year by a phishing tool named Sofacy, which is used by a Russian-based group called Pawn Storm. The hackers apparently wanted to steal personal...

n February, Iranian hackers took down the computer system of gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson’s casino empire, wiping hard drives clean and shutting down email. Las Vegas Sands, the world’s largest gaming company, was devastated by the attack. But until a Bloomberg Businessweek report Thursday night, the company had never revealed the extent of the hack. Coming months before the recent hack on Sony Pictures, the hit on Sands is now believed to be the first major destructive cyberattack on a U.S. business, although there are likely others that have gone unreported. From the instant the offensive started, Las Vegas Sands...

Russia and China present the greatest cyber security threat to the U.S., but Iran is trying to increase and spend more on its capabilities, the Navy admiral in charge of the military’s Cyber Command told Congress Tuesday. Adm. Michael Rogers told the Senate Armed Services Committee that while the U.S. has more overall military power than the three countries, the gaps are narrower when it comes to cyber warfare. He said U.S. Cyber Command is making progress building cyber mission teams, and will have 133 fully operational by September 2018. Already, he said that nearly 100 teams are already conducting...

Talk about a bad week. Poll numbers tanking, polling shows millennial ladies prefer Bernie, her attempts to connect with minority demographics flopping hard, 13 Hours hits theaters, resurrecting the Benghazi story, and now a second Congressional investigation. This latest investigation centers around the security of Hillary's home-brewed email server used during her tenure as Secretary of State. According to Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman: Understanding these companies' roles in providing software and services to maintain former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server is critical to improving government cybersecurity standards. A high profile...

Hillary Clinton's top Democratic "rival" may believe that people are sick of hearing about her "damn emails," but that pronouncement -- since walked back, as its issuer fades in the polls -- evidently does not apply to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Politico reports that the bureau's probe into Clinton's improper, unsecure email scheme has been ramping up, not petering out: Even as Hillary Clinton tries to put questions about her private email server behind her, the FBI has stepped up inquiries into the security of the former Secretary of State's home-made email system, and how aides communicated over email,...

President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were convinced their one-sided nuclear deal would lead to better relations with Iran, but it’s already doing the reverse.Tehran has taken two more Americans hostage just this month — and followed up with a massive cyberattack on the US government, especially the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs.The kicker: Iran is holding the nuke deal hostage — threatening to junk it if Obama tries to punish the country for its fresh outrages.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps has in recent weeks launched increased cyber attacks on Obama administration officials, hacking into their email and social media accounts. U.S. officials believe that the hacks are related to the recent arrest of an Iranian-American businessman in Tehran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has routinely conducted cyberwarfare against American government agencies for years. But the U.S. officials said there has been a surge in such attacks coinciding with the arrest last month of Siamak Namazi, an energy industry executive and business consultant who has pushed for stronger U.S.-Iranian economic and diplomatic ties. Obama administration personnel are...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Wednesday blasted the Obama administration over the disclosure of classified intelligence operations, leaks he said came from the “highest levels” at the White House. “This is the most highly classified information and it’s now been leaked by the administration at the highest levels at the White House and that’s not acceptable,” McCain said on CBS "This Morning." On Tuesday, McCain said the Senate Armed Services Committee would hold hearings about leaks detailing a U.S. cyberattack against Iran’s nuclear program and called for a special counsel to investigate the matter. A report last week in The...

Police in Delaware are slowly piecing together the details surrounding the death of former presidential advisor John P. "Jack" Wheeler III. It now seems Wheeler spent at least two days wandering the streets of Wilmington disoriented. Police say Wheeler traveled from Washington, D.C., where he worked, to Wilmington Tuesday on an AMTRAK train. He was last seen alive at 3:30 p.m. Thursday near the Hotel duPont parking garage at 10th and Orange streets. Iman Goldsborough, the parking lot attendant, encountered a man she believes was Wheeler on Wednesday night near the intersection where he was last officially seen Thursday. Goldsborough...

US National Intelligence Director James Clapper on Thursday warned that America must be ready for a “large, Armageddon-scale” cyber attack, in remarks made at an annual conference of members of the US intelligence community in Washington DC. “Cyber threats to US national and economic security are increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication and the severity of impact,” Clapper warned. “Although we must be prepared for a large, Armageddon-scale strike that would debilitate the entire US infrastructure, it’s not our belief that that’s the most likely scenario.” […] In a sign of the rising concern over the trend of cyber warfare in...