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The federal government is considering new options to aggressively counter foreign cyberattackers, with some in Washington considering the use of private companies to hit back. The Biden administration created new partnerships with thousands of cyber companies, ostensibly to fortify defenses, share information and build resilience. As Republicans take charge across Washington with President Trump at the helm, some policymakers are considering using those private-sector partners in an offensive capacity.During the House Homeland Security Committee’s first hearing of the new Congress, Rep. Clay Higgins questioned CrowdStrike Senior Vice President Adam Meyers about his view on his sector’s lack of ability to...

The Department of Homeland Security has dismissed the members of its advisory committees—including the Cyber Safety Review Board, which investigates major cybersecurity incidents—as part of a Trump-administration drive to cut costs at the agency, according to three people familiar with the matter. An internal Jan. 20 memo from DHS Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman said, “In alignment with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security, I am directing the termination of all current memberships on advisory committees within DHS, effective immediately...Future committee activities will be focused...

Nearly 100 domains hosting Sneaky 2FA phishing pages have been identified as of this month, suggesting moderate adoption by threat actors. "This kit is being sold as phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) by the cybercrime service 'Sneaky Log,' which operates through a fully-featured bot on Telegram," the company said in an analysis. "Customers reportedly receive access to a licensed obfuscated version of the source code and deploy it independently." Phishing campaigns have been observed sending payment receipt-related emails to entice recipients into opening bogus PDF documents containing QR code that, upon scanning, redirects them to Sneaky 2FA page Sekoia said the phishing pages...

BREAKING: TikTok has shut down in the U.S.

The FBI has unveiled details of a massive international cyberattack orchestrated by the Chinese hacker group Mustang Panda, which used the PlugX malware to compromise thousands of computers in at least 170 countries. According to the Justice Department, the group—described as “PRC state-sponsored hackers”—is funded by the Chinese government and has primarily targeted European government devices. Since 2014, Mustang Panda has utilized PlugX malware to infiltrate government and business systems across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The malware, initially designed to exploit Windows-based devices, was modified in 2020 to spread via USB flash drives. Thousands of devices, including many home...

NEW YORK, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Colonial Pipeline's main U.S. gasoline artery is expected to remain shut through Friday as the company continues to search for the source of a suspected leak in Paulding County, Georgia, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Line 1, one of two mainlines on the more than 5,500-mile Colonial system, was shut on Monday night after Colonial received reports of a gasoline release. The pipeline moves gasoline from Texas to North Carolina and was earlier expected to resume service on Tuesday night, according to market sources. "Colonial continues on-site work to identify the...

Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during an interview on Sunday, a week before he steps down, that China has penetrated America’s water treatment plants, electric grid, and other critical civilian infrastructure, and is lying “in wait” for an opportunity to cyberattack at a time and place of its choosing. Asked on CBS’s 60 Minutes about Chinese penetration of U.S. cyber and infrastructure, Wray said China’s cyber program is the largest in the world and has stolen more of Americans’ personal and corporate data than every nation combined. Then, he added: But even beyond the cyber theft. There’s another part...

A US Army soldier has been arrested in Texas after being indicted on two counts of unlawful transfer of confidential phone records information. While the indictment doesn't specify any hacking activity or victims' names, Cameron John Wagenius, 20, is suspected of being a cybercriminal known as Kiberphant0m, who claimed to have breached at least 15 telecommunications firms including AT&T and Verizon, according to KrebsOnSecurity. Wagenius is allegedly an associate of Connor Riley Moucka, one of the men accused of compromising multiple organizations' Snowflake-hosted environments, stealing sensitive customer data housed in the cloud storage service, and then extorting victims for millions...

WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached the U.S. Treasury Department's computer security guardrails this month and stole documents in what Treasury called a "major incident," according to a letter to lawmakers, opens new tab that Treasury officials provided to Reuters on Monday. The hackers compromised third-party cybersecurity service provider BeyondTrust and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said. According to the letter, hackers "gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users. With access to the stolen...

The US Treasury says Chinese hackers stole major documents in a computer breach. The hackers compromised third-party cybersecurity service provider BeyondTrust and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said.

A major Russian telecommunications company appears to have begun providing an Internet connection to North Korea. The new link supplements one from China and will provide back-up to Pyongyang at a time the US government is reportedly attacking its Internet infrastructure and pressuring China to end all business with North Korea. The connection, from TransTeleCom, began appearing in Internet routing databases at 09:08 UTC on Sunday, or around 17:38 Pyongyang time on Sunday evening. Internet routing databases map the thousands of connections between telecom providers and enable computers to figure out the best route to a destination. Until now, Internet...

Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into the US Treasury Department earlier this month and stole documents from its workstations, according to a letter to lawmakers that was provided to Reuters on Monday. The hackers compromised a third-party cybersecurity service provider and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said, calling it a "major incident." According to the letter, hackers "gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users. With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able override the service’s...

With everything going on in the world, I wanted to reach out to see what other Freepers are doing online to protect yourselves, whether its subscribing to a monitoring service for activity under your name, using VPN (which one & why), password managers, multi-factor authentication etc. What else should a person consider?

“Operation Destabilise has exposed billion-dollar money laundering networks operating in a way previously unknown to international law enforcement or regulators. “For the first time, we have been able to map out a link between Russian elites, crypto-rich cyber criminals, and drugs gangs on the streets of the UK. The thread that tied them together – the combined force of Smart and TGR – was invisible until now. “The NCA and partners have disrupted this criminal service at every level. We have identified and acted against the Russians pulling the strings at the very top, removing the air of legitimacy that...

The story is about how older hackers from Russia in their 40's who have been hacking for years and know all the tricks unite with younger hackers, ENglish speaking, who are doing the hacking into corps. and elsewhere.

We already knew that a weaponized Deep State Blob was jumping over the Constitutional guardrails to monitor Americans. Whether it was the State Department’s Global Engagement Center or Big Finance giddily handing over MAGA customer information without a court order, the Deep State has waded through Americans’ smartphones and social media at will to categorize, target, and silence Americans. This behavior is shameful, and after January 20, 2025, hopefully, investigations will be announced for at least the worst of the worst of the Deep State Offenders. Because of this unlawful behavior, the $106 billion per year spent on the National...

NEW YORK, July 13 (Reuters) - A former CIA software engineer was convicted on Wednesday of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks from the spy agency, in one of the biggest such thefts in CIA history.

A major cyberattack on big US telecom companies has led officials to recommend that people use encrypted messaging apps. Microsoft named the attack "Salt Typhoon," and it's affecting companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies. Officials haven't released a timeline for when everything will be fixed, but they did say that a lot of different types of information were accessed in the breach. The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) advised using encrypted messaging apps like Signal or iMessage to reduce the chances of messages being intercepted. This essentially means to stop using SMS because it's not...

Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next director of the FBI, was recently targeted by an Iranian hacking campaign. According to the Washington Examiner, multiple sources claim that the FBI had informed both Patel and President-elect Trump of the cyberattack. The Trump transition team issued a statement that did not confirm such a hacking attempt, but nevertheless condemned Iran and praised Patel’s past work on counter-terrorism. “Kash Patel was a key part of the first Trump administration’s efforts against the terrorist Iranian regime and will implement President Trump’s policies to protect America from adversaries as the FBI...

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice when he was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel on Wednesday. Thompson — who was killed in what police called a targeted shooting outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown — exercised stock options and sold shares worth $15.1 million on Feb. 16, less than two weeks before news of the federal antitrust probe went public, according to a Crain’s New York Business report from April. ... Earlier this year, UnitedHealth was hit by one of the largest healthcare data breaches...