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Molly Hall, a spokeswoman for the DEFCON event, said the mock websites were built by Brian Markus, who she called a “world-renowned security expert.” In total, 35 of 39 participants ages 6-17 successfully hacked mock versions of Secretary of State websites in six swing states during a portion of the convention called the Voting Machine Hacking Village, according to event organizers. The “hackers” managed to tamper with vote tallies, party names and candidate names, changing vote tallies to numbers like 12 billion and candidate names to “Bob Da Builder” and “Richard Nixon’s head.”

Cash machines could be mass-hacked in global cyber attack, FBI warns https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/08/13/uk-cash-machines-could-mass-hacked-global-cyber-attack-fbi-warns/ By: Natasha Bernal  13 AUGUST 2018 • 2:06PM Banks have been warned of an imminent threat that their cash machines could be mass-hacked by cyber criminals. In a confidential alert on Friday, America's Federal Bureau of Investigation told international banks that criminals are plotting a concerted global malware attack on cash machines in the next few days.  The FBI issued a warning about a highly choreographed fraud scheme known as an ATM "jackpotting", in which crooks hack a bank or payment card processor and use cloned cards at cash machines around the world to...

North Korea is rapidly amassing capabilities with arguably greater destructive potential than nuclear or ballistic missiles. Pyongyang’s elaborate licit and illicit financial networks grow more sophisticated and its army of cyber warriors grows more adept with each passing day, posing fearsome threats to Northeast Asia, the United States, and the entire international system. Meanwhile, behind a veil of nuclear belligerence, the ruling Kim family has been quietly and painstakingly preparing to fight the next war: a “Secret War” waged not with guns and bullets, but with information and network access. Former NSA deputy director Chris Inglis describes cyber as a...

WASHINGTON — The hackers’ targets: The former head of cybersecurity for the U.S. Air Force. An ex-director at the National Security Council. A former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. All were caught up in a Russian government-aligned cyberespionage campaign. None was warned by the FBI. The bureau repeatedly failed to alert targets of the Russian hacking group known as Fancy Bear despite knowing for more than a year that their personal emails were in the Kremlin’s sights, an Associated Press investigation has found. “No one’s ever said to me, ‘Hey Joe, you’ve been targeted by this Russian group,'” said...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) New analysis of malware campaigns suggests that North Korean hackers may have re-used malware and computer infrastructure, leaving a trail which increasingly allow incidents to be traced back to them. Examination of malware believed to be associated with North Korean cyber operations found the same code is often re-used in multiple attacks -- and increasing the confidence that a string of campaigns over the last decade have been the work of the hackers in the country. The joint research by security firms McAfee and Intezer reveals new connections between attacks believed to be the work of North Korea, a...

On Tuesday, I was asked to testify to Congress about a proposed bipartisan “Shield” law that would protect reporters from going to prison if they refuse to reveal their confidential sources. There are exemptions in the proposed law for instances where national security is at risk or lives are in danger. (Thank you to Congressmen Jordan, Raskin, Meadows, Palmer, Krishnamoorthi and Grothman.) At the hearing, I was asked about the government intrusion of my computers. CBS Confirms Sharyl Attkisson’s Computer Hacked The testimony starts :55 minutes into the YouTube link of the hearing below. If you’re interested in the questions...

The Illinois state election board said Friday that it is likely the state referred to in special counsel Robert Mueller’s latest indictment as having been hacked into by Russian intelligence officers, the Chicago Tribune reported. Illinois officials said Friday that they had requested confirmation from the Justice Department that it was the state mentioned in the indictment. The hack has been public knowledge for nearly two years, with the FBI issuing an alert about the cyber attack in August 2016, one month after it took place. “We are grateful that DOJ has identified who the perpetrators are,” state election board...

The Pentagon has quietly empowered the United States Cyber Command to take a far more aggressive approach to defending the nation against cyberattacks, a shift in strategy that could increase the risk of conflict with the foreign states that sponsor malicious hacking groups. The U.S. Cyber Command was created partly in response to a Russian hacking attack that long predated the 2016 election. In the fall of 2008, Russian intelligence agencies penetrated SIPRNet, the Pentagon’s secret internal network; that led to a rush to consolidate several cyberprograms into a command. The Chinese, meanwhile, were stealing weapons designs, including blueprints for...

As Sweden moves ever closer to a cashless economy, tourists are starting to complain, according to state promotion agency Visit Sweden.Ewa Lagerqvist, the agency’s chief executive, told Sweden’s TT newswire that Germans, who frequently use cash at home, expect to be able to do so in Sweden as well. “The Germans want to avoid the charges which banks take out on card payments, but they also cite deep-rooted privacy concerns when they consider why they want to be able to use cash,” she said. “For the Brits, it’s more purely the bank charges which annoy them.” Tourists also complain that...

There's an extremely serious dump of emails that came from Wikileaks exposing Hillary Clinton for ordering top US Diplomats to steal the DNA and passwords from United Nations leadership. The stunning email comes from the account of Hillary Clinton that used the address “hdr22@clintonemail.com”.

Twitter is urging its users to change their passwords following a bug that was identified on the social media platform. While the bug has since been fixed, the company assures users there were no signs of breach or misuse of the passwords by anyone. In an effort to establish complete transparency, Twitter Chief Technical Officer Parag Agrawal took to Twitter’s blog to explain exactly what happened. When setting a password on your Twitter account, the platform uses technology that masks it so that no one else at the company can see it. Twitter’s passwords are masked through a process called...

Hackers demanding ransom payable in bitcoin have attacked computers of the Atlanta city government in the southern US state of Georgia, officials say. The ransomware assault shut down multiple internal and external applications for the city, including apps that people use to pay bills and access court-related information, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told a news conference Thursday. "This is a very serious situation," Bottoms said. City officials said they learned of the attack before dawn Thursday when they detected unusual activity on their servers. Some of the city's data had become encrypted. A ransom note sent to the city gave...

The Department of Justice has alleged that nine hackers with ties to the Iranian government engaged in a massive cybertheft scheme to steal scientific data and intellectual property from hundreds of U.S. and foreign universities, private companies and government agencies.

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden ripped Facebook in a tweet Saturday after the social media giant suspended Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm which worked worked for President Trump’s campaign. Facebook accused the firm on Friday of not deleting data it had improperly harvested from Facebook users, which number in the tens of millions, but Snowden pinned the blame squarely on Facebook and lumped in other social media companies for being just as reckless. "Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives were once plainly described as 'surveillance companies,'" Snowden said. "Their rebranding...

With the Illinois primary just days away, state election officials are beefing up cyber defenses and scanning for possible intrusions into voting systems and voter registration rolls. They have good reason to be on guard: Two years ago, Illinois was the lone state known to have its state election system breached in a hacking effort that ultimately targeted 21 states. Hackers believe[d] to be connected to Russia penetrated the state’s voter rolls, viewing data on some 76,000 Illinois voters, although there is no indication any information was changed. Since then, Illinois election officials have added firewalls, installed software designed to...

Working with dubious sourcing, a group close to NATO's chief military commander Philip Breedlove sought to secure weapons deliveries for Ukraine, a trove of newly released emails revealed. The efforts served to intensify the conflict between the West and Russia. Most of the 1,096 hacked emails date back to the dramatic 12 months of the Ukraine crisis after Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014. Thousands died in the skirmishes between Kiev's troops and Moscow-aligned separatists. More than 2 million civilians fled eastern Ukraine. Breedlove sought counsel from some very prominent people, his emails show. Among them were Wesley Clark, Breedlove's...

The admission revealed the identity behind a big data breach. Nghia Hoang Pho, 67. Nghia, Carted home, “Top Secret” and “Sensitive Compartmented”, Information for over five years. These files were downloaded onto Pho’s personal computer and then routinely harvested by Russian intelligence. Pho took a mix of digital and physical info home between 2010 and 2015. he was using it to rewrite his resume -- this was intentional, but not spiteful. Pho may face prison time when he's sentenced on April 6th, but prosecutors “are open to calls for a lighter sentence” given the non-malicious nature of the case. It...

Last month, a local California newspaper left more than 19 million voter records exposed online. Gizmodo confirmed this week that the records were compromised during an apparent ransomware attack. The Sacramento Bee said in a statement that a firewall protecting its database was not restored during routine maintenance last month, leaving the 19,501,258 voter files publicly accessible. Additionally, the names, home addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers of 52,873 Sacramento Bee subscribers were compromised. “We take this incident seriously and have begun efforts to notify each of the individuals on the contact list and to provide them resources to help...

British 15-year-old gained access to intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending to be head of CIA, court hears A 15-year-old gained access to plans for intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending to be the head of the CIA to gain access to his computers, a court has heard. From the bedroom of the Leicestershire home he shared with his mother, Kane Gamble used “social engineering” – where a person builds up a picture of information and uses it manipulate others into handing over more – to access the personal and work accounts of some of America's...

Cables Portray Expanded Reach of Drug Agency By GINGER THOMPSON and SCOTT SHANE WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables. In far greater detail than previously seen, the cables, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to some news organizations, offer glimpses of drug agents balancing diplomacy and law enforcement in places where it can be...