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WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - Elite hackers tried to break into the World Health Organization earlier this month, sources told Reuters, part of what a senior agency official said was a more than two-fold increase in cyberattacks. WHO Chief Information Security Officer Flavio Aggio said the identity of the hackers was unclear and the effort was unsuccessful. But he warned that hacking attempts against the agency and its partners have soared as they battle to contain the coronavirus, which has killed more than 15,000 worldwide. The attempted break-in at the WHO was first flagged to Reuters by Alexander Urbelis, a cybersecurity expert...

Two leading cybercriminal groups have said they will stop targeting healthcare organizations as the coronavirus outbreak spreads, according to Forbes. BleepingComputer founder Lawrence Abrams reached out to various cybercrime groups, asking them if they will continue to target health and medical organizations during the pandemic. One ransomware-focused group DoppelPaymer said that they “always try to avoid hospitals, nursing homes,” reports Forbes. When they conduct attacks on government, they “do not touch 911.” However, at times emergency communications are encrypted due to network misconfigurations. DoppelPaymer said that if a medical or healthcare organization does get encrypted in a cyberattack by mistake...

The FBI arrested suspected hacker Arthur Dam in connection with cyberattacks he allegedly carried out during the 2018 Democratic congressional primary that ultimately nominated former Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., who he was found to have ties to, according to a criminal complaint filed on Wednesday. Special Agent Elliot Weideman, who works with the Computer Intrusion Squad in the Bureau's Los Angeles field office, accused Dam of "intentionally damaging and attempting to damage a protected computer." He also claimed Dam was involved in four cyberattacks that disrupted the website of Hill's primary opponents. One of the victims saw their website go...

Exclusive The technology behind the Catholic Church’s latest innovation, an electronic rosary, is so insecure, it can be trivially hacked to siphon off worshipers' personal information. The eRosary, which went on sale this week at just $109 (£85) a pop, consists of ten metallic beads, and a metal cross that’s Bluetooth enabled, has wireless charging, and is motion sensitive. When the wearer makes the sign of the cross with the rosary, the accompanying Click to Pray app on their paired phone or tablet activates: this software suggests which rosary movements to make, and which prayers to mumble. It can also...

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/289290-jeff-bezos-neil-degrasse-tyson-join-pentagon-innovation-board July 26, 2016 - 02:15 PM EDT Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jeff Bezos join DOD innovation board By Rebecca Kheel Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson were among the big names Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Tuesday as joining the Pentagon’s recently formed Defense Innovation Advisory Board. “I've given them the very specific task of identifying innovative private sector best practices that could be of use to DOD [the Department of Defense] — not unlike our recent Hack the Pentagon pilot program, which invited hackers to help find vulnerabilities in our networks," Carter said during an...

No wonder the Dems are nervous: The alleged Russian hacking of the DNC’s computers is proving to be a Hillary campaign and DNC scam that went unchallenged by Messrs. Comey and Mueller. In his telephone conversation with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump requested Ukraine’s help in getting “to the bottom of” the Russian collusion narrative and the role of CrowdStrike, a private computer security company, in propagating that story. Lost in the volcanic eruption of faux outrage and condemnation aimed at the president by the Democrats and their wholly owned media subsidiary, this reference to CrowdStrike indicates that the...

A hacking operation apparently linked to the Iranian government unsuccessfully targeted President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, a source confirmed to CNBC on Friday. Reuters first reported the incident, citing two sources familiar with the operation. Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh told CNBC: “We have no indication that any of our campaign infrastructure was targeted.” Earlier Friday, Microsoft announced that it had seen “significant cyberactivity” from a hacking group apparently sourced to Iran and linked to that country’s government. Microsoft did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request to confirm that the hacking group targeted the Trump campaign.

MADISON, Wis. – Democrat Milwaukee County prosecutors tapped the email and text communications of conservative activists as part of a five-year probe aimed at bringing down Republican Gov. Scott Walker, affidavits reviewed by Wisconsin Watchdog reveal. One target of the spying operation told Wisconsin Watchdog the methods used to keep tabs on Wisconsin residents were like those of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program. “It was actually worse because (Milwaukee County prosecutors) were taking the body of emails and looking at actual data,” said the source, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from the prosecutors....

A Haverford College student who used a campus computer to attempt to hack into an IRS database to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns days before the 2016 presidential election pleaded guilty Tuesday to two misdemeanor crimes in federal court. Justin Hiemstra, 22, who finished his studies in May but will not get his degree until he completes a study-abroad program next May, told Judge Cynthia Rufe that he did not know what he would have done with the tax returns if he and classmate Andrew Harris had succeeded in obtaining them on Nov. 2, 2016. “It was a time when...

"Watch me in 2020." Seven years since U.S. authorities shut down the file-sharing platform, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is hoping to use a database of former users' emails to influence the 2020 presidential election. In a series of tweets this morning (Aug. 12), Dotcom suggested that he plans to encourage former users of the long-defunct site to oppose the presidential ambitions of former U.S. vice president Joe Biden, whom Dotcom has long blamed for instigating the site's downfall. "Still waiting to get access to your Megaupload files? I will email 30 million former US Megaupload users a video link in...

Paige Thompson was arrested Monday for allegedly hacking into Capital One’s databases and gaining access to approximately 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 bank account numbers. Capital One disclosed the massive breach in a press release Monday afternoon, noting that about 100 million people in the U.S. and 6 million people in Canada were affected in total. It’s one of the largest breaches of a major financial service. A majority of the comprised information came from credit card application data submitted between 2005 and 2019 that included names, addresses, zip codes/postal codes, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, and...

Don't you just love it when the hackers get hacked?According to BBC Russia, the Russian intelligence agency's computer systems have been penetrated by an outfit calling itself "0v1ru$" and 7.5 terabytes of data has been stolen. 0v1ru$ then passed the data along to the larger, well known group Digital Revolution who then disseminated the information to various media outlets.BBC Russia also says no state secrets were exposed by the hack.The hackers were able gain entry to FSB systems through a contractor, SyTech.Forbes: BBC Russia  broke the news that 0v1ru$ had breached SyTech's servers and shared details of contentious cyber projects, projects that included...

Iran has increased its offensive cyberattacks against the U.S. government and critical infrastructure as tensions have grown between the two nations, cybersecurity firms say. In recent weeks, hackers believed to be working for the Iranian government have targeted U.S. government agencies, as well as sectors of the economy, including oil and gas, sending waves of spear-phishing emails, according to representatives of cybersecurity companies CrowdStrike and FireEye, which regularly track such activity. It was not known if any of the hackers managed to gain access to the targeted networks with the emails, which typically mimic legitimate emails but contain malicious software....

A report published this week by the NASA Office of Inspector General reveals that in April 2018 hackers breached the agency's network and stole approximately 500 MB of data related to Mars missions. The point of entry was a Raspberry Pi device that was connected to the IT network of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) without authorization or going through the proper security review. According to a 49-page OIG report, the hackers used this point of entry to move deeper inside the JPL network by hacking a shared network gateway. The hackers used this network gateway to pivot inside...

A small city in Florida has agreed to pay nearly $600,000 in bitcoin ransom to hackers who took control of its computer systems in a ransomware attack, according to reports. The Riviera Beach City Council on Monday unanimously approved its insurance carrier to pay 65 bitcoin — valued at about $592,000 — in hopes of regaining full access to its network, the Palm Beach Post reported. The attack two weeks ago wiped out the city’s entire computer system. The city council was left without email and phone service, direct-deposit paychecks had to be hand-delivered instead and the police department had...

For my followers: my recent tweets are less for you than they are fir my pursuers. They are shots across the bow .. https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1137799476507217921

Hackers may soon be able to discern information from the sounds of typing. A 2019 study of the budding phenomenon, obtained by Cornell University and not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, found that Android phones and tablets are able to pick up sound waves of typing through their microphones. In theory, these sound waves can dictate where on a screen a person was tapping, meaning hackers could have access to pins, logins, text messages and other sensitive and private content, the Wall Street Journal reports. So, if hackers were able to access a device’s microphone — they could be privy to messages sent...

"omg." That was the three-letter response from top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin -- familiar Internet shorthand for "Oh my God!" -- when Justin Cooper, the technology pro overseeing Clinton's private home-based email servers, told her shortly after midnight on Jan. 9, 2011, that "someone was trying to hack us." The revelation was contained in a trove of newly released, partially redacted FBI documents from the agency's investigation into whether Clinton mishandled classified information -- a probe known as the "Midyear Exam." The document release reveals numerous episodes in which the Clinton team either suspected it had been hacked or...

Activists have successfully forced Mastercard to hold a vote by shareholders on a proposal which, if passed, could see the company monitoring payments to global far-right political leaders and white supremacist groups. The proposal aims to see Mastercard establish an internal “human rights committee” that would stop designated white supremacist groups and anti-Islam activists, such as Tommy Robinson, from getting access to money sent from donors using the company’s card payment services. It’s been conceived by US-based political activists SumOfUs, who want to escalate the battle against white supremacists and far-right groups from tech platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Patreon,...

Ecuador on Saturday revealed criminal hacking charges against Ola Bini, a computer programmer with ties to recently arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “The State Prosecutor General’s Office filed charges against a Swedish citizen, aged 36, for his alleged participation in the crime of assault on the integrity of computer systems,” the agency said in a statement. The announcement did not mention Mr. Bini by name, but it followed reports that he was ordered held for investigative purposes after being detained at a Quito airport Thursday within hours of Ecuador ejecting Mr. Assange from its London embassy. “It’s up to the...