Free Republic

A Clinton campaign aide says that a typo in a March 19 email sent to John Podesta is to blame for opening the campaign chairman’s Gmail account up to Russian cyber hackers. The IT aide, Charles Delavan, tells The New York Times that his error — typing the word “legitimate” instead of “illegitimate” to describe a hacker’s email — continues to haunt him. “This is a legitimate email,” Delavan wrote to Clinton campaign aide Sara Latham after she forwarded him an spear phishing email designed to look like official correspondence from Google. “John needs to change his password immediately,” Delavan...

This whole Russian hackers may be Wiki's source of HRC's emails and that means the Russians "hacked the election" narrative reminds me very much of the stunt an ambassador named Joe Wilson pulled in 2002, with the help of the New York Times. Anyone remember this? It was not long after G.W. Bush's State of the Union address, where Bush said that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy enriched uranium from Africa (presumably to make weapons of mass destruction.) Joe Wilson, who was a liberal, decided to "investigate" this claim. He went to one country, Niger, for about 10 days...

On Thursday, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to ask “why [it] was attempting to breach” the firewall protecting his computer infrastructure. The letter also drew attention to the fact that “under 18 U.S.C. 1030, attempting to gain access or exceeding authorized access to protected computer systems is illegal."In the weeks and months leading up to the elections, DHS and other federal agencies expressed growing concerns over the threat of Russian hackers penetrating government computers. Many of those concerns were based in the oft-repeated claim that the hacking of the...

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...

The incoming Trump administration is being advised to train 100,000 hackers. The new president should also make an effort to develop international norms for hacking, essentially drawing red lines to avoid cyber warfare or even armed conflict. President Obama's special Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity released its long-awaited report Friday night. In it, the panel outlines a challenging to-do list that makes clear cybersecurity is a top national priority. Computer hacking is now commonplace and more dangerous than ever....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- New evidence appears to show how hackers earlier this year stole more than 50,000 emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, an audacious electronic attack blamed on Russia's government and one that has resulted in embarrassing political disclosures about Democrats in the final weeks before the U.S. presidential election. The hackers sent John Podesta an official-looking email on Saturday, March 19, that appeared to come from Google. It warned that someone in Ukraine had obtained Podesta's personal Gmail password and tried unsuccessfully to log in, and it directed him to a website where he should "change your password...

Twitter user's outrage at the stupidity of the Clinton campaign's cavalier attitude towards cyber security -- check out the passwords on Hillary's and Podesta's accounts!

For more than two hours on Friday morning, much of the web seemed to grind to a halt—or at least slow to dial-up speed—for many users in the United States. More than a dozen major websites experienced outages and other technical problems, according to user reports and the web-tracking site downdetector.com. They included The New York Times, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, GitHub, Etsy, Tumblr, Spotify, PayPal, Verizon, Comcast, EA, the Playstation network, and others. How was it possible to take down all those sites at once?

So, let's say that the Democrats really are telling the truth and Russian hackers are behind all the embarrassing hacking going on of the DNC and various federal agencies (notice they don't dispute what the hacks reveal, only who's doing them) and we know Democrats are trying myriad ways to commit vote fraud in this election, it would not be too far a reach to think Russian hackers might have access to vote tabulation centers in the U.S. to change the results of the American vote in favor of Trump.

Updated | I am Sidney Blumenthal. At least, that is what Vladimir Putin—and, somehow, Donald Trump—seem to believe. And that should raise concerns about not only Moscow’s attempts to manipulate this election but also how Trump came to push Russian disinformation to American voters. An email from Blumenthal—a confidant of Hillary Clinton and a man, second only to George Soros, at the center of conservative conspiracy theories—turned up in the recent document dump by WikiLeaks. At a time when American intelligence believes Russian hackers are trying to interfere with the presidential election, records have been fed recently to WikiLeaks out...

Hackers have made their way into state election systems “in a few cases,” but the federal government hasn’t found “any manipulation” so far of voting information, the Homeland Security secretary said Saturday. Twenty-one states have contacted the agency for help in safeguarding their election systems, and Jeh Johnson is urging additional requests for cybersecurity assistance. “We hope to see more,” Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement. A department official told The Associated Press on Friday that hackers have targeted the voter registration systems of more than 20 states in recent months. The official, who was not authorized to publicly...

Targets included Arizona and Illinois, with Russia again a prime suspect. A Homeland Security official has confirmed that hackers have targeted the voter registration systems of more than 20 states, the Associated Press reports. That disclosure puts hard numbers on a similar statement made earlier in the week from FBI Director James Comey. Comey stated that hackers were scanning voter database systems, “which is a preamble for potential intrusion activities,” and had attempted to gain access to some systems. Among states that have been targeted are Illinois and Arizona. In Illinois, hackers reportedly successfully downloaded information on as many as...

Attackers used an army of hijacked security cameras and video recorders to launch several massive internet attacks last week, prompting fresh concern about the vulnerability of millions of “smart” devices​in homes and businesses connected to the internet. The assaults raised eyebrows among security experts both for their size and for the machines that made them happen. The attackers used as many as one million Chinese-made security cameras, digital video recorders and other infected devices to generate webpage requests and data that knocked their targets offline, security experts said. Those affected include French web hosting provider OVH and U.S. security researcher...

The FBI has discovered attempted hacks of voter registration sites in more than a dozen states according to two law enforcement officials. US investigators believe that Russia is behind those attempted hacks the officials said. Earlier Wednesday, FBI Director James Comey spoke of additional attempted hacks at a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, but did not specify a number.

The stolen data includes users’ names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, passwords and security questions for verifying an account holder’s identity. This is a developing story. It will be updated.

"Today we look at the reason why hackers always prefer Linux over Mac, Windows, and other operating systems. You may have your own reasons for choosing Linux but what do hackers really look forward to while working with Linux."

Hackers may have gained access to Hillary Clinton’s and Sidney Blumenthal’s unsecured files by initially hacking Marcel Lazar Lehel, aka Guccifer, sources told PJ Media. At least one or more American whistleblowers told House and Senate Intelligence Committees the unsecured files stolen by the unidentified hackers can be found at specific locations in the Deep Web and are known as the “Russian files.” According to a PJ Media source, attaining the files did not require hacking Russians or any other computer, but instead locating the images of the files that remain when the hackers move the files around the Deep...

The pillars that provide the basic infrastructure of the internet are being probed by an unknown entity that is probing for that point where the foundation cracks and the internet breaks. The internet’s critical and underlying basic infrastructure is being probed by an unknown attacker who is – patiently – looking for vulnerabilities, revealed cybersecurity expert and cryptographer Bruce Schneier. A board member at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Tor project, Schneier is also the chief technology officer at Resilient, a cybersecurity firm recently acquired by IBM. In a blog post, Schneier states that some of the companies...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday to keep Republican candidates from using hacked Democratic documents in this year’s election campaigns, the latest political twist in a summer of revelations of digital break-ins believed linked to Russia. “Russia’s cyber attack is an unprecedented assault on the sanctity of our democratic process,” Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to the Wisconsin Republican. “We must come together to say that defending our democracy from Russia’s meddling is more important than any advantage or disadvantage in this election.” A GOP aide said Ryan cannot control campaign ads by Republican...

Hackers thought to be working for Russian intelligence have carried out a series of cyber breaches targeting reporters at the New York Times and other US news organizations, according to US officials briefed on the matter. The intrusions, detected in recent months, are under investigation by the FBI and other US security agencies. Investigators so far believe that Russian intelligence is likely behind the attacks and that Russian hackers are targeting news organizations as part of a broader series of hacks that also have focused on Democratic Party organizations, the officials said.