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Hackers crippled computer networks across multiple government agencies, including the Finance MinistryCosta Rica has declared a state of emergency after ransomware hackers crippled computer networks across multiple government agencies, including the Finance Ministry. The official declaration, published on a government website Wednesday, said that the attack was “unprecedented in the country” and that it interrupted the country’s tax collection and exposed citizens’ personal information. The hackers initially broke into the Finance Ministry on April 12, it said. They were able to spread to other agencies, including the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications and the National Meteorological Institute. Leon Weinstok,...

The website of the Hudson Institute, http://www.hudson.org, a politically conservative, non-profit American think tank based in Washington, D.C. which was scheduled to host Wednesday, October 4, Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Kwok, China’s most famous billionaire businessman and whistleblower seeking political asylum in the United States, has been under attack today and is not functioning at this moment. Tomorrow’s Hudson Institute event with Guo Wengui was postponed. It is not clear whether the postponement was because of what is believed to be a cyber attack, but Guo Wengui will speak at the Hudson Institute, BBG Watch was told. Hudson...

GURMO Hackers Go Kinetic Against Gazprom - Two Pipeline Fires So Cyber operators at the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GURMO) have been conducting computer network operations (CNO) against Gazprom. At some point during Russia’s occupation of Ukraine, GURMO achieved access to Gazprom’s network and exfiltrated thousands of documents (samples to be released here in a later report). As a result of their access, GURMO’s Cyber unit engineered a hack of the pipeline’s pressurization controls that would cause a pipeline to rupture resulting in a fire. To date, two pipelines have experienced rupture events...

Apple and Facebook reportedly provided sensitive customer information to hackers who faked being law enforcement officials in 2021. Facebook parent company Meta and Apple gave the hackers basic customer details — such as phone numbers, home addresses, and IP addresses — in response to forged "emergency data requests," Bloomberg reported. Typically, such data requests can only be granted through search warrants or subpoenas provided by a judge, but emergency requests don't require a full-court order. The hackers who duped the companies are affiliated with cybercrime groups known as “Recursion Team,” who have a history of using fake legal requests to...

Russian hackers have been scanning the systems of energy companies and other critical infrastructure in the United States, and state-sponsored hacking by Russia presents a “current” threat to American national security, a top FBI official told lawmakers on Tuesday. “The threat from Russia in a criminal sense, in the nation state sense, is very, very real – and current,” said Bryan Vorndran, an assistant director in the FBI’s cyber division, during a hearing before a U.S. House of Representatives panel. In the weeks since Russia’s unprovoked attack against Ukraine, the White House and the Justice Department have been warning U.S....

Hacking group Anonymous has claimed an attack on Russia’s Central Bank. In a post on Twitter, an account representing the group said that it would release 35,000 files in 48 hours that apparently contains “secret agreements”. The account has not yet given proof that it had successfully undertaken the hack, or that it had access to the promised documents.

Okta, the $25 billion market cap company that handles logins for more than 100 million users, today confirmed it suffered a breach in January via a third party customer support provider. But for some customers who spoke to Forbes, the disclosure was too late and too scant with information. Okta’s admittance came after a hacking crew called LAPSUS$, which extorts its targets after stealing their data and often leaks victims’ information in public forums, claimed it had breached the company. LAPSUS$ had previously claimed to have stolen data from major security companies including NVIDIA and Microsoft, leading both to investigate...

Hackers have stolen data from Nvidia, the world’s largest GPU maker, and are holding that data ransom. The as-yet unidentified “threat actors” may be helping the company’s competition in China, according to a research group in Washington D.C. Last week, Nvidia lost proprietary information to a group of hackers. A cybercriminal gang called “Lapsus$” has leaked Nvidia passwords, schematics, drivers and firmware and is threatening to release more information unless its demands are met, according to press reports. Those demands include removing cryptocurrency mining limiters on its gaming cards and making its GPU drivers open source, according to ArsTechnica. Nvidia...

Top officials at a U.S. federal cybersecurity agency are urging a judge not to authorize at this time the release of a report that analyzes Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Georgia, arguing doing so could assist hackers trying to “undermine election security.” The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was recently provided an unredacted copy of the report, which was prepared by J. Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society. The report discusses “potential vulnerabilities in Dominion ImageCast X ballot marking devices,” or electronic voting devices, according to the government. While CISA supports...

Today, the Justice Department unsealed charges in a significant national security cyber matter.  The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington (EDWA) and the National Security Division (NSD) have charged two Chinese hackers working with the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), including the Guangdong State Security Department (GSSD) of the MSS, with a sweeping global computer intrusion campaign.  In making this announcement, I’m joined here by Dave Bowdich, Deputy Director of the FBI, Bill Hyslop, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, and Raymond Duda, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Seattle Field...

Chinese hackers came within minutes of shutting down a series of power stations capable of lighting three million homes in a sneak cyber attack of a sort experts warn are becoming increasingly common – and which could be used to limit Australia’s ability to respond to a military crisis in the future. On November 27, Queensland’s CS Energy was subjected to a sustained ransomware attack which sources familiar with the matter say was only stopped at the last minute before it had the potential to shut down the company’s two thermal coal plants. Had the attack been successful, it could...

They defended their practice of holding computers for ransom after the FBI took down a major ransomware group. Some of the most destructive ransomware hackers in the world appear to be on edge after the U.S. reportedly took down one of their colleagues. Several ransomware gangs posted lengthy anti-U.S. screeds, viewed by NBC News, on the dark web. In them, they defended their practice of hacking organizations and holding their computers for ransom. They appear prompted by the news, reported Thursday by Reuters, that the FBI had successfully hacked and taken down another major ransomware group called REvil....

REvil, the ransomware group that hacked the U.S. Colonial Pipeline this past May, was itself hacked and shut down by a multinational cyber operation, according to Reuters. The Russia-based organization was reportedly hacked using the same technique that they had used to bring down the pipeline. Officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) worked alongside investigative arms from multiple other countries,,,

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which operates dozens of TV stations across the U.S., said Monday that some of its servers and work stations were encrypted with ransomware and that some of its data was stolen from the company's network. The company said in a regulatory filing it started investigating the potential security incident on Saturday and on Sunday it and found that certain office and operational networks were disrupted.,,, ...Sinclair said it's taken measures to contain the incident and that its forensic investigation is ongoing. However, the company said that the data breach has caused – and may continue to cause...

Ransomware gangs attacked even more water treatment plants across the US than previously known, according to a new report. Water plants in Nevada, Maine, and California were all hit with ransomware in 2021 — and all three incidents went unreported until Thursday, when the attacks were disclosed in a joint advisory published by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI, the NSA, and the Environmental Protection Agency... ...In all three attacks, cybercriminals took over the water treatment plants' supervisory control ....

Over the last six years American Internet security researchers have come to realize that much of the data stolen by Chinese hackers could be obtained, without breaking any laws, from commercial data brokers. While “data privacy” is often a major political issue few of these prominent critics seemed to realize that most of this data was available from commercial firms long before the government began building their own computerized personnel databases, which were subsequently stolen by foreign hackers. Collecting such data for commercial purposes has been going on for over a century. American firms pioneered the business of selling to...

2021 09 30 Weather modification. “Climate Change” Part 1 I have been fascinated with the weather since I was a teenager in New York State. Watching lightning I was fascinated and watching the lightning hit many areas I would spend hours looking for storms. As I got older and going across the country in my twenties I have seen from east to west beautiful country and very little storms one Summer when I went across the country with friends. The last 60 years I have been following weather modification and fascinated with it. Finding out what causes storms as I...

Hello, We are contacting you to notify you of an urgent security notice. Despite the extensive security practices we use to protect our platforms and customer information, we have confirmed an unauthorized intrusion into some of our domain-related systems. We have mobilized the full force of multiple cyber security teams to assess the scope of this intrusion. We are taking aggressive action to completely secure and remediate all potentially affected systems, while complying with all applicable laws. As we work to confirm all related details, we are taking an approach toward maximum caution and urging customers to remain alert for...

We think we know how he did it, but we're not going to explain it yet. Don't want to give others ideas. Meanwhile, we've temporarily disabled the login program while John makes some changes tonight to try to block bots. Hopefully, he'll have the programming complete tonight. Sorry about the mess, but looks like the mods have most of it deleted.

T-Mobile has confirmed its servers have been hacked - but refused to confirm claims 100 million customers personal data - including social security numbers and drivers licenses - are now for sale online. The hack was confirmed Monday afternoon, with a spokesman saying: 'We have determined that unauthorized access to some T-Mobile data occurred, however we have not yet determined that there is any personal customer data involved.' T-Mobile offered no further details of the breach, or confirmation that details including the names, addresses and unique phone serial numbers - known as IMEIs - of almost its entire customer base...