Free Republic

Hillary Clinton posted and shared the names of concealed U.S. intelligence officials on her unprotected email system. Federal records reveal that Clinton swapped these highly classified names on an email account that was vulnerable to attack and was breached repeatedly by Russia-linked hacker attempts. These new revelations — reminiscent of the Valerie Plame scandal during George W. Bush’s tenure — could give FBI investigators the evidence they need to make a case that Clinton violated the Espionage Act by mishandling national defense information through “gross negligence.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides tried to use personal hand-held electronic devices inside areas used to store classified information, according to the just-released State Department inspector general report. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the State Department’s security arm, told the inspector general that in March 2009 Mrs. Clinton rejected an offer from security officials to provide her with a secure government smartphone. “DS was informed that Secretary Clinton’s staff had been asking to use BlackBerry devices inside classified areas,” said the report, released late last month. Another portion of the inspector general’s report states that Mrs....

The young cybersleuth says he exposed security lapses on Florida elections websites, but the state says he committed a crime. David Levin, 31, of Estero, a political consultant and owner of a computer security firm, was booked Wednesday on three felony charges of unauthorized access to computer systems. Each count carries a maximum five-year prison sentence. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Levin illegally gained internal access to websites of the state Division of Elections and the Lee County elections office, which together hold data on more than 12 million Florida voters. FDLE said that after Levin gained access...

A group of hackers linked to Islamic State has posted online a list of thousands of New York residents and urged followers of the militant group to target them, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. Federal agents and New York City police officers have been contacting the individuals on the list to inform them of the posting, but the source said law enforcement does not believe there is any credible threat. In a statement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said, "While our standard practice is to decline comment on specific operational and investigative matters, the FBI routinely...

The FBI's announcement that it mysteriously hacked into an iPhone is a public setback for Apple Inc., as consumers learned that they can't keep the government out of even an encrypted device that U.S. officials had claimed was impossible to crack. Apple, meanwhile, remains in the dark about how to restore the security of its flagship product. The government said it was able to break into an iPhone used by a gunman in a mass shooting in California, but it didn't say how. That puzzled Apple software engineers — and outside experts — about how the FBI broke the digital...

Hacker collective Anonymous claimed to have leaked Donald Trump's private details on Thursday, but most of the dump was already publicly-available or made so last year. "We have attached a gift of sorts," says a computer-generated voice in a new video claiming to be from Anonymous. "Trump's social security number, cell phone number, and other details that might be able to assist you all in independently investigating this would-be dictator. These are provided for informational purposes only."

Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous hacktivist collective have vowed to relaunch cyber-operations against US presidential candidate Donald Trump from 1 April. They threaten to 'dismantle his campaign' by taking his election websites offline in a large-scale and orchestrated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.In December 2015, Anonymous officially 'declared war' on Trump after a radical speech in which he said Muslims should be banned from entering the United States. The operation at the time resulted in a number of websites being targeted by hackers, but failed to have lasting impact. Why advertise with us A new video statement has been posted to...

South Korean Economy Boosted As Won Jumps To New High Hackers helped themselves to $81 million after breaching Bangladesh Bank’s systems between Feb. 4 and Feb. 5—but the massive theft could have been far worse if not for a typo. After successfully transferring $81 million from the bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to entities in the Philippines, the hackers tried to transfer another $20 million to a Sri Lankan nonprofit, only they wrote “fandation” rather than “foundation” as part of its name, an official tells Reuters. While the Fed grew suspicious, routing bank Deutsche Bank...

Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center on Wednesday announced that it paid approximately US$17,000 to resume normal operations after digital extortionists knocked its computer systems offline. The Los Angeles hospital discovered its computer network infected with ransomware earlier this month. Ransomware is a form of malware that scrambles data and key files on a system and demands a ransom be paid for a digital key to unscramble the data. After paying a ransom of 40 bitcoins, or $17,000, to the extortionists, the hospital was able to bring its electronic medical record system online, HPMC said. Bitcoins are a digital currency favored by...

One of China's largest web companies suffered a massive hacking attack last year, its owner said Thursday. Hackers managed to gain access to 20.59 million user accounts on Taobao. The attack on China's largest marketplace happened in October last year, where criminals managed to obtain a database of 99 million usernames and passwords for Taobao, according to Reuters. Taobao is the 12th most popular site in the world, and ranks third in China. It has an estimated 265 million registered users, and is China's equivalent of eBay.

(Copyright)

As many as 80,000 residents in western Ukraine lost power for six hours on Dec. 23. Cybersecurity firms SANS ICS and iSight Partners have attributed the blackout to Russian hacking group Sandworm and its malicious software, BlackEnergy 3. Cyberattacks on power grids and other critical infrastructure are not new, but this most recent attack seems to be the first use of cyber as a weapon with kinetic effects during an ongoing conflict, highlighting the growing importance of cybersecurity. While an analysis of the cyberattack is ongoing, BlackEnergy has a history of targeting information control systems. For the Prikarpattiaoblenergo electric company...

Drug Cartels Are Hacking US Border Patrol Drones Border patrol drones are vulnerable to GPS spoofing attacks The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency are reporting on incidents where drug traffickers have hacked unmanned air vehicles (UAVs, drones) in order to illegally and secretly cross the US-Mexican border. UAVs have become a common presence in the US military, but they have also spread to other US law enforcement agencies like local police and border patrol. Unlike their military counterparts, which cost millions of dollars, the drones used by other law enforcement...

Rather than encouraging motorists to avoid drinking and driving, a traffic sign in Southern California was recently hacked to display an unusual message: "Vote Donald Trump." A husband and wife first noticed the pro-Trump digital advisory, positioned just off the side of Interstate 15 in Corona, Calif., on their way home from the movies on Christmas day, a local news station reported Monday. The full text of the traffic sign reads: "Inland Empire supports Donald Trump. Merry Xmas. Vote Donald Trump." A spokesperson for California's Department of Transportation declined to specify whether the sign supporting the Republican front-runner was...

A smartphone app used by Islamic State (Isis) to spread news and propaganda could be behind the massive attack on the internet's core infrastructure that took place earlier this month, according to several cybersecurity experts. Analysis of the IS Amaq Agency app has revealed that it was potentially the source of a botnet created to perform a massive DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on root name servers. A more powerful attack in the future could cause significant disruption to internet services and could even temporarily take down the internet. **SNIP** Until recently, the cyber capabilities of IS have been...

Full Title: Hackers trace ISIS Twitter accounts back to internet addresses linked to ..Department of Work and Pensions Teenage computer experts unveil astonishing web of unpublicised interactions linking extremist social media mouthpieces to the British government. Hackers have claimed that a number of Islamic State supporters' social media accounts are being run from internet addresses linked to the Department of Work and Pensions. A group of four young computer experts who call themselves VandaSec have unearthed evidence indicating that at least three ISIS-supporting accounts can be traced back to the DWP's London offices.

Ok Freepers, so my question is are these services (LifeLock and others) worth it? Or are they just a waste of money? Can anyone recommend a particular one based on personal experiences? Reason I ask is one of my credit cards was apparently hijacked today. No fraudulent charges but they did manage to change my profile info and password for online access. Received an email from the bank saying my personal info was changed and if I didn't do the changes contact the bank at the number on the card. Sure enough they had successfully changed all the info including...

A local FReeper e-mailed this to me this morningThere IS cause for alarm

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) uses a 34-page manual to instruct its followers on how to stay invisible on the Internet. The Arabic document was translated and released this week by analysts at the Combating Terrorism Center, an independent research group at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. It includes warnings to avoid Instagram because it is owned by Facebook, and Dropbox because former secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sits on its board of investors. Famous government leaker Edward Snowden has also criticized Dropbox over its privacy, the document notes. Users are also directed to use...

Hacking group Anonymous disables thousands of pro-ISIS Twitter accounts and taking militant websites offline Anonymous have stepped up their campaigns against the Islamic State They declared war on the jihadis in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks One group claims to have suppressed over 10,000 social media pages Some have posed as recruits to gain information on the Dark Web Head of the Ghost Security Group said they are playing an intelligence role The volunteer organization has been sending data to the FBI and other agencies via Congressional terrorism adviser, Michael S. Smith II Islamic State sympathizers using social...