Free Republic

The Department of Homeland Security will turn 1 year old March 1, but the past year has not been without challenges, one official said today. Janet Hale, homeland security undersecretary for management, told members of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association that the past year has been extraordinary and that standing up the department has been one of the "largest management challenges the federal government has ever seen." Hale was the keynote speaker for the opening day of AFCEA's 2004 Homeland Security Conference here. She said when the department was stood up in March 2003, some 180,000 employees had...

https://atlanta.afceachapters.org/2024-homeland-security-critical-infrastructure-conference “AFCEA Atlanta Homeland Security Conference on Critical Infrastructure November 6-7 , 2024 with a large-scale tabletop cybersecurity exercise on November 5, 2024 AFCEA Atlanta is proud to announce our Fourth Annual Homeland Security Conference is back for 2024! This will be a multi-day event focused on critical infrastructure, with a pre-conference cybersecurity exercise open to registrants who want to observe or participate.”

In December 2023, for 17 continuous days, a fleet of drones appeared at night over Langley Air Force Base (AFB), Virginia and other facilities in the greater Virginia Beach area. This was reported at the time, but the story was fleeting. Two other events occurred in the area that are relevant to the story. In February 2023, a pair of F-22s from Langley shot down the Chinese spy balloon as it exited the United States over South Carolina into the Atlantic Ocean. In January 2024, a Chinese graduate student at the University of Minnesota, was arrested for flying a drone...

The annual cost of cybercrime is expected to reach $10 trillion dollars next year. To put that figure into context, in terms of GDP it would be the third biggest economy in the world after the US and China. That’s why countries from Australia to China, the UK and US are racing to tighten up their cybersecurity laws – and why the UN is expected to pass a landmark cyber treaty in the next few weeks. For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app. From deep-fakes and disinformation to hacks and attacks on...

Donald Trump says a federal case needs to be brought against Kamala Harris after it was revealed Iran sent sensitive materials to her campaign about her rival... ...on Wednesday, the FBI claimed the cyber-terrorists sent unsolicited emails containing stolen information from the Trump campaign to people connected to the Democratic president in an effort to interfere. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, is now questioning why the Biden or Harris campaign did not turn over this information or report it to authorities... There's no evidence that any of the recipients of the hacked information responded, officials said, and...

Adrian Lamo, the computer hacker who reported Chelsea Manning to authorities for sharing classified documents with WikiLeaks, was found dead in an apartment in Wichita, Kansas, last week, according to local reports. Lamo, whose cause of death has yet to be reported but has been deemed unsuspicious by police, was 37, the Wichita Eagle reported. “With great sadness and a broken heart I have to let know all of Adrian’s friends and [acquaintances] that he is dead,” his father, Mario Lamo, posted on Facebook on Friday. “A bright mind and compassionate soul is gone, he was my beloved son.” Lamo...

Legacy media is reporting the FBI has allegedly located an individual of interest in over 100 swatting calls, including calls targeted at Alejandro Mayorkas, Director of the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure and Security Agency Jen Easterly, and other Biden administration officials. It is believed that the person of interest lives in Serbia. They have not yet been charged, but sources say charges will be brought soon. According to news reports, the suspect is alleged to have made the calls targeting officials over the Christmas holidays.

Personal information for some 3,191 congressional staffers has been leaked across the dark web, according to new research from internet security firm Proton being released Tuesday. The firm said the data available in the hidden online hubs includes passwords, IP addresses and information from social media platforms. “Many of these leaks likely occurred because staffers used their official email addresses to sign up for various services, including high-risk sites such as dating and adult websites, which were later compromised in data breaches,” Proton said in a statement. “This situation highlights a critical security lapse, where sensitive work-related emails became entangled...

The feds warned that “a group of malicious cyber actors,” whom security experts believe to be the government-sponsored hacking group known as APT6, “have compromised and stolen sensitive information from various government and commercial networks” since at least 2011, according to an FBI alert obtained by Motherboard. The alert, which is also available online, shows that foreign government hackers are still successfully hacking and stealing data from US government’s servers, their activities going unnoticed for years. This comes months after the US government revealed that a group of hackers, widely believed to be working for the Chinese government, had for...

Suppose, during a battle at sea— with missiles flying—an adversary is trying to disrupt a ship’s sensor- fusion system, so that it mischaracterizes what the sensors are seeing. With current cybersecurity methods, it could take minutes or even hours for analysts to determine that the system is being attacked. And by then it might be too late.However, a new approach that uses AI could, for example, send an alert to the combat systems officer—in real time—that there is a high probability that an attack on the sensor-fusion system is underway. Armed with that information, the CSO could limit any possible...

Shiva Ayyadurai is an entrepreneur, MIT graduate, Donald Trump-supporting Indian-born immigrant and U.S. citizen hoping that his outsider status will carry him to the U.S. Senate. A Republican, Ayyadurai declared on social media several weeks ago that he intends to challenge for Sen. Elizabeth Warren's seat in the 2018 election. He filed official paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on March 17. Warren, a Democrat, is a former Harvard Law School professor who defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown in the 2012 election. In a Monday meeting with editors of The Sun, Ayyadurai portrayed himself as a "21st-century senator" with...

A “possible cyberattack” led to an internet outage and web system issues at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Saturday, the Port of Seattle reported. The agency posted an initial alert on the social media platform X shortly after 9 a.m., advising passengers to check with their airlines for the latest information on their flights. In an afternoon update, the Port confirmed the possibility of a cyberattack and said it had “isolated critical systems.” The Port did not have a timeline for restoration.

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and other banks were targeted on Wednesday as part of a significant cyber attack that led to widespread disruptions in the country's banking system, Iran International reported. #BREAKING A major cyberattack has targeted the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and several other banks, leading to widespread disruptions in the country’s banking system, @IranIntl has learned. Initial assessments indicate this could be one of the largest cyberattacks ever against… pic.twitter.com/6TiuNrxosL — Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) August 14, 2024 According to reports, all the computer systems of the banks in Iran were paralyzed following the cyber...

Iran-backed Hezbollah laundered money through Awan family used-car lot. When IT man Imran Awan attempted to flee the country in July, the feds busted him on bank fraud charges. Imran’s brother Abid ran a used-car lot in Falls Church, Virginia, called Cars International A. Trouble was, the “CIA” dealership had no inventory and the sales people were fakes. As Rosiak learned, the Awan dealership “took money from a Hezbollah-linked fugitive” whose financial books were “indecipherable.” And as the DEA was aware, “the Iranian-linked terrorist group frequently deployed used car dealerships in the US to launder money and fund terrorism.” On...

A digital security firm got the shock of a lifetime when it came to light that one of its remote workers was actually a North Korean hacker after he infected his new company laptop with malware. "The moment it was received, it immediately started to load malware," security firm KnowBe4 wrote in a blog post about the incident. The company stressed that "no illegal access was gained, and no data was lost, compromised or exfiltrated on any KnowBe4 systems." "KnowBe4 needed a software engineer for our internal IT AI team," the company explained. "We posted the job, received resumes, conducted...

And it’s clear there is far more going on under the hood than meets the eye. Firstly, it all ties into the Trump assassination attempt and ongoing Congressional testimony of Director of Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle. The testimony has revealed there are likely a lot of things being hidden from the public about the would-be assassin Thomas Crooks’, and particularly his potential dealings with the FBI.### Now there’s an investigation by Heritage foundation showing that a digital device visiting Crooks’ home multiple times has been geo-located to having gone to the vicinity of an FBI office in Washington DC in...

A Boston-based cybersecurity company has hired violent Los Angeles Antifa extremist Chad Loder as its Vice President of Security Solutions. Loder has a history of violent extremism and has been permanently banned from the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, for inciting violence. He has publicly supported domestic terrorists and cold-blooded murderers, including Antifa gunman Michael Reinhoel and Antifa bomber Willem Van Spronsen. Loder has been named the VP of Security Solutions at CyberSN and will work alongside the company's founder and CEO Deidre Diamonds, according to CyberSN, a cybersecurity workforce risk management and strategy group. [snip] Loder, a far-left...

It can cause more harm than good! Key Features ·CrowdStrike shows the havoc that can be wreaked by supposed security software. ·Most people don't need third-party antivirus software. ·Most modern-day threats are aimed at exploiting humans, not computers.

undreds of flights were cancelled at British airports yesterday due to the fault ... Travel disruption is continuing today as trains are hit in Crowdstrike outage with ticket machines and scanners going down at London stations. The meltdown chaos comes after the world's biggest IT disaster struck, with thousands of Brits stranded abroad. It happened on one of year's busiest travel days, with families now desperately queuing at Dover Port in an attempt to get home. After another 45 flights were cancelled today, 28,000 Brits are fighting to get a seat on a plane. Some passengers stuck overseas have been...

July 19 (Reuters) - A global tech outage was disrupting operations across multiple industries on Friday, with airlines halting flights, some broadcasters off air and services from banking to healthcare hit by system problems. While major U.S. airlines - American Airlines (AAL.O), opens new tab, Delta Airlines (DAL.N), opens new tab and United Airlines (UAL.O), opens new tab - grounded flights, other carriers and airports around the world reported delays and disruptions early on Friday. Banks and financial services firms from Australia to India and Germany warned customers of disruptions. In Britain, booking systems used by doctors were offline, multiple...