Free Republic

A whistleblower has come forward with an explosive new trove of documents, rivaling or exceeding the Twitter Files and Facebook Files in scale and importance. They describe the activities of an “anti-disinformation” group called the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, or CTIL, that officially began as the volunteer project of data scientists and defense and intelligence veterans but whose tactics over time appear to have been absorbed into multiple official projects, including those of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The CTI League documents offer the missing link answers to key questions not addressed in the Twitter Files and Facebook Files....

Idaho National Laboratory experienced a massive data breach on Sunday night, leading to the leak of employee addresses, Social Security numbers, bank account information and much more. INL media spokesperson Lori McNamara tells EastIdahoNews.com the breach is being investigated and federal law enforcement are involved. “Earlier this morning, Idaho National Laboratory determined that it was the target of a cybersecurity data breach, affecting the servers supporting its Oracle HCM system, which supports its Human Resources applications. INL has taken immediate action to protect employee data,” says McNamara. “INL has been in touch with federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI...

Unknown individuals using fake names hacked into the virtual portion of the City Council meeting on Tuesday night and used racial slurs and antisemitic remarks. There appeared to be three or four hackers who interrupted Mayor Hector Lora's remarks a few minutes into the meeting. The audio and visual portion of the meeting was temporarily taken over and occasionally flashed back to Lora, who was trying to speak. The hackers, who all appeared to be men, shouted racial expletives and untruths regarding the Sept. 11 attacks. Three of Passaic’s seven council members are Orthodox Jews. The city Police Department is...

NATO is "actively addressing" multiple IT security incidents after a hacktivist group claimed it once again breached some of the military alliance's websites, this time stealing what's claimed to be more than 3,000 files and 9GB of data. When asked about this alleged intrusion, a NATO official declined to answer specific questions and told The Register: NATO is facing persistent cyber threats and takes cyber security seriously. NATO cyber experts are actively addressing incidents affecting some unclassified NATO websites. Additional cyber security measures have been put in place. There has been no impact on NATO missions, operations and military deployments....

Around 2150 hours Comcast went completely down in south central Pennsylvania. No cable, dial tone, or internet. After restoration a number of conservative news sites have become dns blocked, including: World Net Daily Townhall.com The Federatlist The National Herald Surprisingly, DU is also down. Maybe the hacker's attempt at being "fair and balanced"

Generative AI isn’t new, but releases by artificial intelligence developers such as OpenAI and Stable Diffusion in 2022 represent real leaps forward in the availability and usability of generative AI applications — advances so significant that the internet is filled with predictions of doom.Humanity hasn’t ceased to exist in the months since chatbots became super-powered, however, and cooler heads are pondering the implications of these technologies, industry by industry.In order to understand the cybersecurity impact, BizTech convened a roundtable of security leaders — Equifax CISO Jamil Farshchi, Mastercard Chief Security Officer Ron Green and Patricia Titus, CISO of the insurance...

Chinese hackers broke into a Microsoft engineer’s corporate account, leading to the unauthorized access of email accounts belonging to senior U.S. officials, casting a shadow over the tech giant’s cybersecurity measures. The hack occurred in June, but the company just completed an internal investigation that pointed the finger at its own sloppy security practices. Bloomberg reports that Microsoft has disclosed that China-linked hackers compromised the corporate account of one of its engineers, then used this unauthorized access to steal a digital key in order to forge authentication tokens. These tokens granted them access to email accounts on Microsoft’s cloud servers,...

Square, a company that supplies point of sale (POS) systems to small businesses that allow for credit card processing, has been down all day Thursday, affecting users in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, France, and Spain. Square is one of the largest suppliers of POS systems to all kinds of businesses, like restaurants, salons, tattoo parlors, boutiques, and much more. According to the website, Square is “Trusted by millions of businesses worldwide.”Without the ability to process credit cards, many businesses have reported turning away customers who don’t have cash—or taking an enormous risk and writing down credit card...

China-based hackers breached the email account of US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns as part of a recent targeted intelligence-gathering campaign, three US officials familiar with the matter told CNN. The hackers also accessed the email account of Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of State for East Asia, who recently traveled with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China, the people said. The news, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, adds to the fallout for the US of the alleged Chinese hack first revealed last week. The hackers also infiltrated the emails of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, CNN previously...

The City of Fort Worth says it was targeted by a group of hackers because of the state's stance on gender-affirming care. City officials say the hackers stole information from a website used to track city work orders, but no sensitive information has been released. On Friday, June 23 the City's Information Technology Solutions Department was told about a post that said the City's website had been hacked. Staff found that data posted online came from an internal information system used to track work orders, not the City's public website. "The City of Fort Worth has confirmed that the posted...

Pro-Russian hacking outfits Killnet, REevil and Anonymous Sudan have allegedly formed an alliance to launch a concerted cyberattack on the Western financial system, particularly targeting the SWIFT wire transfer system, according to CyberKnow.Forged in the underground hacking forums, the groups stated their “no money – no weapons – no Kiev regime” formula to cut off the pipeline of Western aid to Ukraine.Their primary target is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system, which powers most international money and security transfers, failure of which could potentially cripple the Western financial system.Other targets in their crosshairs include European and US...

This chilling story is enough to make your stomach turn as Ryan Montgomery shares the details of how he became involved and uncovered a website that led to the discovery of its owner, Nathan Larson, a former congressional candidate. These individuals, who have perpetrated terrible and horrific crimes that will affect their victims for the rest of their lives, have thus far escaped justice. However, Ryan and his partner are actively pursuing them.

San Bernardino County paid a $1.1 million ransom to hackers who infiltrated the Sheriff's Department computers, officials acknowledged Friday. Last month, the department admitted a hack encrypted many of its files, disrupting systems and blocking access to data. County officials told ABC News on Friday that the county carries insurance for such attacks and its share of the ransom came out to just over $511,000. After negotiating with the hackers, the insurance company and county agreed to pay to restore the system to its full functionality and secure data.

FBI Director Christopher Wray appeared before a House Appropriations Committee budget hearing Thursday and claimed that Beijing has stolen more personal and corporate data from the U.S. than any other nation, and that their vast ranks of internet spies hugely outnumber the FBI’s forces:Today’s cyber threats are more pervasive, hit a wider variety of victims, and carry the potential for greater damage than ever before. You take China. A key part of the Chinese government’s multi-pronged strategy to lie, to cheat and to steal their way to surpassing us as the global superpower is cyber.The director went on to explain...

Flights are grounded all across the USA… but why? Everybody knows the proximate cause, but is there a deeper rot at the FAA and our Department of Transportation? You bet! “How could the FAA leave all US domestic flights grounded for the first time since the 9/11 terror attacks?” is the obvious question, after Wednesday’s hot mess at the FAA. Under Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a better question might be, “Yes, but were flights grounded with diversity, equity, and inclusion?” Because DEI is exactly where Buttigieg’s priorities lie — not with the vital business of keeping our transportation infrastructure operating....

Flights across the United States were grounded Wednesday morning after the Federal Aviation Administration said it experienced a computer outage. All flights in the U.S. were grounded following the incident, a source with knowledge of the situation told NBC News. The FAA said later Wednesday morning it had ordered all airlines to pause domestic departures until 9 a.m. ET....

Internal documents allege that employees were paid thousands of dollars to hijack accounts Meta has allegedly fired and/or discipled more than 12 employees for hacking into users’ Facebook and Instagram accounts on the behalf of hackers. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which broke the story on November 17, some of the hacking cases involved bribery, with employees being paid thousands of dollars to hack into the accounts. According to an internal investigation into the account hijacking, those fired by Meta included contractors employed at the company’s facilities as security guards. They were able to hack into unsuspecting victim’s...

Payment-seeking software made by Russian hackers was used in three quarters of all the ransomware schemes reported to a US financial crime agency in the second half of 2021, a Treasury Department analysis released on Tuesday (Nov 1) showed. In analysis issued in response to the increase in number and severity of ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure in the United States since late 2020, the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said it had received 1,489 ransomware-related filings worth nearly US$1.2 billion in 2021, a 188 per cent jump from the year before. Out of 793 ransomware incidents reported to...

A former FBI analyst was sentenced to seven days in jail for illegally accessing his neighbor’s email in what he said was an attempt to prevent harm to special counsel Robert Mueller’s reputation. Mark Tolson, 60, pleaded guilty in September to a single 'misdemeanor charge of computer fraud and abuse' after he admitted to illegally hacking right-wing lobbyist Jack Burkman’s email account.

"This release includes bug fixes, increased stability and performance improvements." The routine software update may be one of the most familiar and least understood parts of our digital lives. A pop-up window announces its arrival and all that is required of us is to plug everything in before bed. The next morning, rather like the shoemaker and the elves, our software is magically transformed. Last spring, a Texas-based company called SolarWinds made one such software update available to its customers. It was supposed to provide the regular fare — bug fixes, performance enhancements — to the company's popular network management...