Free Republic

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...

The hackers had claimed to have stolen more than 500 gigabytes of data from the school district during last month’s hack, although authorities have not yet verified that claim. The crime group originally set Monday as the deadline for the school district to pay a ransom to keep the data off of the internet, but the data was published ahead of time late Saturday night. The motive for publishing two days ahead of the established deadline appears to be related to Superintendent Alberto Carvalho publicly announcing that the school district would not pay any ransom to the hackers. The attack...

The hackers who targeted the Los Angeles Unified School District have made a ransom demand, officials confirmed Tuesday, an indication that the attackers have extracted sensitive data or believe they can bluff the district into thinking that they have. “We can confirm that there was a demand made,” L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho said. “There has been no response to the demand.” Carvalho declined to disclose the amount of the ransom demand or any further information about what information, if any, the attackers may be holding. He said that there have been “no new security breaches” and that the school...

“The Italian Government and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte are directly involved in the electoral fraud that affected the American elections leading to Joe Biden’s pending illegal victory.”Editor’s Note: What follows is an article purportedly written by “Riccardo Corsetto” sent to NOQ Report through a media contact with Nations in Action. We have not independently verified it but felt it was necessary to put out there considering the late hour in this election cycle.According to US investigative sources working here in Italy since 18 November 2020, it was the US Embassy in Rome who coordinated the data manipulation of votes cast...

Hackers are breaking into unsuspecting victims’ Cash App accounts, a massively popular payment app, and stealing hundreds of dollars, according to victims Motherboard spoke to. In one person’s case, they said, Cash App has not reimbursed them for the stolen funds. Cash App is one of the most popular payment services apps, with over 50 million downloads from the Google Play Store. Cash App also gained some infamy for large scale cash giveaways on social media. The app is owned by payment services company Block, which was formerly known as Square. Jack Dorsey runs the company. Marvis Herring, another target,...

Congress's website was hacked for around an hour Thursday evening as a Russia-aligned hacktivist group took credit for turning the text of the site entirely into Russian. The pro-Russian hacker group Killnet claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on its Telegram channel. In its message announcing the action, translated by Polina Tyntareva, a Russian university student, the hacker group gave an encyclopedic definition of Congress before it said, "So they have money for weapons for the whole world, but not for their own defense." As seen in a video posted along with the message, Congress's homepage was changed...

Dozens of attacks on churches, pregnancy crisis centers, and pro-life groups around the nation have drawn an FBI investigation and questions from lawmakers about whether the Biden administration is doing enough to stop them. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray this week calling for a briefing on the issue and urging Wray to ensure these “violent attacks are recognized by the FBI and are being properly investigated for what they are—cases of abortion-related violent extremism. “There have been at least 40 violent attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, religious institutions, and other pro-life entities since...

Your router is a crucial part of your home’s connection. It’s the primary way the internet gets into your house, and it sends out the Wi-Fi signal that connects all your wireless devices. Has it been years since you updated your router? We put together a quick quiz to help you choose the perfect model for your home and needs. This is a must if your connection is spotty and your router isn’t equipped with the latest security standards. Tap or click here to take our router-finder quiz. Even if your firmware is up to date, your router is still...

CHRISTOPHER Sign's apparent suicide was linked to the "Clinton crime syndicate" by Rep Lauren Boebert after the author who wrote a Bill exposé died. Police confirmed that they believe Sign, a local TV news anchor and former University of Alabama football player, died by suicide on Saturday. Sign, 45, broke a story about Bill Clinton meeting then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch in 2016 while she was probing the private email server of the former president's wife. He later went on to pen a book about the secret meeting in 2019, Secret on the Tarmac. Boebert, a Colorado representative who has been...

In context: The Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted several companies to stop doing business with Russia. Western nations have also hit the superpower with crippling sanctions. Even hackers have jumped into the fray with DDoS attacks on government websites. A hacktivist group calling itself Obfuscated Dreams of Scheherazade has created a bot that sets up a conference call between multiple government entities, causing each to think the other one made the call. The stated purpose is to waste the government's time and tie up the phone lines. The automated spam calls go on non-stop during Russian operating hours.On Wednesday,...

Hackers crippled computer networks across multiple government agencies, including the Finance MinistryCosta Rica has declared a state of emergency after ransomware hackers crippled computer networks across multiple government agencies, including the Finance Ministry. The official declaration, published on a government website Wednesday, said that the attack was “unprecedented in the country” and that it interrupted the country’s tax collection and exposed citizens’ personal information. The hackers initially broke into the Finance Ministry on April 12, it said. They were able to spread to other agencies, including the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications and the National Meteorological Institute. Leon Weinstok,...

The website of the Hudson Institute, http://www.hudson.org, a politically conservative, non-profit American think tank based in Washington, D.C. which was scheduled to host Wednesday, October 4, Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Kwok, China’s most famous billionaire businessman and whistleblower seeking political asylum in the United States, has been under attack today and is not functioning at this moment. Tomorrow’s Hudson Institute event with Guo Wengui was postponed. It is not clear whether the postponement was because of what is believed to be a cyber attack, but Guo Wengui will speak at the Hudson Institute, BBG Watch was told. Hudson...

GURMO Hackers Go Kinetic Against Gazprom - Two Pipeline Fires So Cyber operators at the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GURMO) have been conducting computer network operations (CNO) against Gazprom. At some point during Russia’s occupation of Ukraine, GURMO achieved access to Gazprom’s network and exfiltrated thousands of documents (samples to be released here in a later report). As a result of their access, GURMO’s Cyber unit engineered a hack of the pipeline’s pressurization controls that would cause a pipeline to rupture resulting in a fire. To date, two pipelines have experienced rupture events...

Apple and Facebook reportedly provided sensitive customer information to hackers who faked being law enforcement officials in 2021. Facebook parent company Meta and Apple gave the hackers basic customer details — such as phone numbers, home addresses, and IP addresses — in response to forged "emergency data requests," Bloomberg reported. Typically, such data requests can only be granted through search warrants or subpoenas provided by a judge, but emergency requests don't require a full-court order. The hackers who duped the companies are affiliated with cybercrime groups known as “Recursion Team,” who have a history of using fake legal requests to...

Russian hackers have been scanning the systems of energy companies and other critical infrastructure in the United States, and state-sponsored hacking by Russia presents a “current” threat to American national security, a top FBI official told lawmakers on Tuesday. “The threat from Russia in a criminal sense, in the nation state sense, is very, very real – and current,” said Bryan Vorndran, an assistant director in the FBI’s cyber division, during a hearing before a U.S. House of Representatives panel. In the weeks since Russia’s unprovoked attack against Ukraine, the White House and the Justice Department have been warning U.S....

Hacking group Anonymous has claimed an attack on Russia’s Central Bank. In a post on Twitter, an account representing the group said that it would release 35,000 files in 48 hours that apparently contains “secret agreements”. The account has not yet given proof that it had successfully undertaken the hack, or that it had access to the promised documents.