Free Republic

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Probing potential cyber tampering and cyber intrusion will now be a standard part of U.S. Navy accident investigation following the Aug. 21 collision of guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) with a chemical tanker, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran told Congress last week. As part of the investigation into McCain’s collision, a team from the Navy’s U.S. 10th Fleet cyber arm traveled to Singapore to see if a reported steering failure of the destroyer was a result of cyber tampering, USNI News reported last month. Vice Adm. Jan Tighe elaborated on the...

The world's best-selling drone-maker is adding a privacy mode to its aircraft to prevent flight data being shared to the internet. The announcement comes a fortnight after it emerged that the US Army had prohibited its troops from using the Chinese firm's equipment because of unspecified cyber-security concerns. DJI told the BBC that it had already been working on the new facility, but had speeded up development after the ban. The mode should be launched next month. DJI previously faced security fears in 2016 after a member of its staff told reporters that the firm had repeatedly shared customer data...

The Pentagon has given US military bases permission to shoot down or otherwise destroy consumer drones flying overhead and nearby. A spokesman revealed that guidance was issued on 4 August. He said the exact terms of the policy were classified. The move comes days after the US Army ordered its own troops to stop using drones made by Chinese manufacturer DJI because of alleged "cyber-vulnerabilities". It became illegal to fly personal drones within 400ft (122m) of the US's 133 military facilities in April. The Federal Aviation Administration announced at the time that those who disobeyed the order would face financial...

When reporters were recently being given tours of the Royal Navy’s new “supercarrier,” HMS Queen Elizabeth, some were surprized to see a distinctive logo on several computer screens on the bridge and in control rooms. The logo was for Windows XP, the Microsoft computer operating system introduced in 2001. The ship itself was under construction for over eight years and the many of the procurement lead times were even longer. The reporters were told that the software was ordered in 2004, when XP was the latest and greatest version of the operating system. [snip] While not as scary as nukes...

Parliament has been hit by a cyber attack that has left MPs unable to access their emails if not in Westminster. MPs were alerted to the hack on Friday night and have reported problems getting into their email accounts on Saturday. The attack comes just days after reports that passwords of ministers were being flogged online after hacking groups managed to gain access. The parliamentary authorities are working with the National Cyber Security Centre to protect the network and ascertain the scale of the damage.

The NHS has been hit by a major cyber attack, with hackers demanding a ransom. Hospitals are understood to have lost the use of phonelines and computers, with some diverting all but emergency patients elsewhere. At some hospitals patients are being told not to come to A&E with all non-urgent operations cancelled. (truncated due to copywrite restrictions)

Five minutes of the cyberpunk story have been released online. Those unsure about how the live-action Ghost of the Shell will approach its cultural heritage need only watch a newly released five-minute clip from the movie to see that it fully embraces the "cyber"-ness of it all.

WASHINGTON — An influential British think tank and Ukraine’s military are disputing a report that the U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has used to buttress its claims of Russian hacking in the presidential election. The CrowdStrike report, released in December, asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine’s war with Russian-backed separatists. But the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told VOA that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed any connection to the CrowdStrike report. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses and hacking...

In the aftermath of reports that Russian agents acting at the behest of strongman Vladimir Putin compromised the presidential election—and perhaps even President-elect Donald Trump himself—the incoming commander-in-chief announced he is turning to the man he passed over for the role of U.S. Secretary of State last year: former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. In a statement to the press this morning, the president-elect’s transition team announced that Giuliani would provide consultation on the matter of cyber security. Until recently, Giuliani served as head of the global cyber security practice at mega-firm Greenberg Traurig.

U.S. President Barack Obama ordered intelligence agencies to review cyber attacks and foreign intervention into the 2016 election and deliver a report before he leaves office on Jan. 20, homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco said on Friday. Monaco told reporters the results of the report would be shared with lawmakers and others. "The president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process ... and to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders, to include the Congress," Monaco said during an event hosted by the...

Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party. 1. Dummy up. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen. 2. Wax indignant. This is also known as the "How dare you?" gambit. 3. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn...

COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum.. There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a 'uncontrolled forum.' Technique #1 - 'FORUM SLIDING' If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by 'forum sliding.' In this technique a number of unrelated...

Default passwords on devices from the digital video recorder in your living room to the security camera in your office threaten the stability of the internet, as hackers build vast networks of “Internet of Things” devices to bombard websites with traffic. The attack on Dyn, a domain name service provider, that disrupted access to high-profile sites such as Twitter, Spotify and the New York Times on Friday, highlighted the risks posed by the billions of devices connected to the internet with little or no cyber security protections. Unidentified hackers took over tens of millions of devices using malicious software called...

The OBAMA-CLINTON-BUSH plans for an “unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election” has nothing to do with “Russia”. There is an entire movement, sometimes called advocates for “Open Docs”, or “Full Disclosure” and advocates of open access to public information, around the philosophy that all political donations including those currently illegally practiced but not disclosed, all donations to so-called “foundations” and “charities” linked to politicians and those in political power and office, all meetings between government officials and lobby based organizations or lawyers or corporations or private interests or foreign...

The furor over the cyberattacks injecting turmoil into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign obscures a more pervasive danger to the U.S. political process: Much of it has only lax security against hackers, with few if any federal cops on the beat. No one regulator is responsible for requiring campaigns, political operations and state and local agencies to protect the sanctity of the voter rolls, voters’ personal data, donors’ financial information or even the election outcomes themselves. And as the Democrats saw in Philadelphia this past week, the result can be chaos.

The computer network used by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The latest attack, which was disclosed to Reuters on Friday, follows reports of two other hacks on the Democratic National Committee and the party’s fundraising committee for candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. The U.S. Department of Justice national security division is investigating whether cyber hacking attacks on Democratic political organizations threatened U.S. security, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

FACT SHEET: Presidential Policy Directive on United States Cyber Incident Coordination | whitehouse.gov https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/26/fact-sheet-presidential-policy-directive-united-states-cyber-incident-1 The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release July 26, 2016 FACT SHEET: Presidential Policy Directive on United States Cyber Incident Coordination The new directive spells out how the Federal government will coordinate its incident response activities in the event of a large-scale cyber incident Today, the President approved a Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) on United States Cyber Incident Coordination.  This new PPD marks a major milestone in codifying the policy that governs the Federal government’s response to significant cyber incidents. Since the...

BREAKING: Today we recognized cyberspace as a new operational domain, joining land, air & sea - SG @jensstoltenberg at #NATOSummit— Oana Lungescu (@NATOpress) July 8, 2016

In February hackers pulled off one of the largest bank heists in history. Hackers gained access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the system used by central banks to authorize monetary transfers. From there they sent money transfer requests to the tune of $951 million from the Central Bank of Bangladesh to the New York Federal Reserve—requesting money to be transferred to banks in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and other parts of Asia. The majority of the $951 million in fraudulent money orders was halted or recovered, but $81 million in transfers was laundered through casinos in...

UC Berkeley officials are sending alert notices to approximately 80,000 current and former faculty, staff, students and vendors following a criminal cyberattack on a system storing their Social Security or bank account numbers. The campus has no evidence that any unauthorized individual actually accessed, acquired or used any personal information; however, it is informing those potentially impacted so they can be alert to signs of any possible misuse of their information and take advantage of credit protection services the campus is offering free of charge. The attack occurred in late December 2015, when an unauthorized person or persons obtained access...