Free Republic

The false narrative of Operation Trump-Russia is the latest in a long train of episodes wherein Democrats have actively defended the indefensible. Emerging in the 1820s to counter the Whigs in favor of Andrew Jackson in 1828, the Democratic Party has had an age-old tradition of fighting to advance every bad idea in American history. To their limited credit, Old Hickory's political team have had brief spurts of decency. In their early days, the Jacksonians opposed centralized government, particularly as related to economics. A late 19th-century faction called the Bourbon Democrats, among whom was President Grover Cleveland, championed fiscal responsibility....

FULL TITLE: EXCLUSIVE: Cybersecurity experts who were first to conclude that Putin hacked presidential election ABANDON some of their claims against Russia - and refuse to co-operate with Congress Claims of Russian interference in the presidential election through hacking Democratic emails have been long-running scandal First link between hacking and Vladimir Putin was made by CrowdStrike, Irvine, CA, based firm hired by the Democratic National Committee It concluded in June 2016 Moscow spies had hacked DNC - before embarrassing emails were published - setting off Russian election scandal Cybersecurity firm examined DNC's servers, something FBI was not allowed to do,...

Let’s start with a caveat from one of the authors of The Intercept’s story, just so we’re clear on what *isn’t* being alleged. very very important: there’s nothing in the NSA report indicating the actual voting machines or vote tabulations were compromised— Sam Biddle (@samfbiddle) June 5, 2017 Was that the goal, though? The piece is long and difficult to excerpt so I’ll try to summarize. According to the NSA (CBS has confirmed that this is indeed a real NSA report), last August Russia’s military intelligence unit — the GRU — hacked into a software company, likely VR Systems...

OneLogin is reporting its recent data breach was made possible when a hacker obtained access to a set of Amazon Web Service keys through a third-party vendor. With this, the hacker was enabled entry into its U.S. data center compromising all its records.

Russian intelligence agents hacked a U.S. voting systems manufacturer in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, according to a National Security Agency investigation report leaked to The Intercept. The Intercept reported Monday that the NSA believes hackers used that breach to obtain information used to spearphish its customers. The report, marked top secret and only to be shared with the "Five Eyes" nations (Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia), claims the Russian intelligence agency GRU targeted more than 120 email addresses associated with local government organizations, which it speculates were taken from the earlier hack.

In Czech, a Russian citizen Yevgenity Nikulin said in court that United States authorities approached him twice to convince Nikulin to falsely testify that he had hacked the DNC emails for Trump and was ordered to do so by the Russian government. Nikulin’s lawyer suggested that the US charges against him are prompted for political reasons to blame him for the DNC leaks. “[They told me:] you will have to confess to breaking into Clinton’s inbox for [U.S. President Donald Trump] on behalf of [Russian President Vladimir Putin],” Nikulin wrote, according to The Moscow Times. The AP reported more on...

Here's what you need to know about the leak. How do we know this is the work of Russia? Cybersecurity experts who initially responded to the DNC hack identified two distinct groups of hackers operating in the system -- one who had exclusively gone after the party's opposition research file on Donald Trump, and one that had been snooping on DNC emails for about a year. Both were recognized as known Russian military or intelligence-affiliated hacking operations. Crowdstrike, the firm that responded to the hack, tracks dozens of advanced cyberespionage operations, many affiliated with governments. Each group has distinct ways...

U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year's American presidential election campaign. The shift followed a VOA report that the company misrepresented data published by an influential British think tank. (snip) VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which publishes an annual reference estimating the strength of world armed forces, disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense also has stated that the combat losses and hacking never happened. (snip) After CrowdStrike released its...

The FBI is investigating an attempted overseas cyberattack against the Trump Organization, summoning President Donald Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric, for an emergency session with the bureau’s cybersecurity agents and representatives of the CIA, officials tell ABC News. Law enforcement officials who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity confirmed the attempted hack and said the subsequent meeting took place at the FBI’s New York headquarters on May 8, the day before Trump fired FBI director James Comey. Spokesmen for the FBI, CIA and Secret Service all declined to comment. Reached by phone, Eric Trump, an executive...

The Inconvenient Truth of A Failed Coup - A Timeline April '16 - Nov '16 - Reuters May 18th, 2017 - according to 'current and former officials', 18 undisclosed contacts between **April '16 and Nov '16** - no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion 'in communications reviewed so far,' 'according to four current officials' and contacts focused on mending US-Russia relations, fighting Isis in Syria and containing an agressive China. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-contacts-idUSKCN18E106 April '16 or earlier - Steele is hired by "groups and donors supporting Republican opponents" http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/28/politics/christopher-steele-fbi-expenses/index.html [NOTE: Fusion claims a republican client hired them prior to the June hiring of...

Millions of new members have flooded to join Ashley Madison despite the 2015 data breach where hackers released the personal details and sexual fantasies of cheating spouses on the site. The company said 400,000 new global users have joined per month since the detrimental cyber attack, according to Fox Business.

Congressional technology aides are baffled that data-theft allegations against four former House IT workers — who were banned from the congressional network — have largely been ignored, and they fear the integrity of sensitive high-level information. Imran Awan and three relatives were colleagues until police banned them from computer networks at the House of Representatives after suspicion the brothers accessed congressional computers without permission. Five Capitol Hill technology aides told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group that members of Congress have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty towards the suspects who police say victimized them. The baffled aides wonder...

I recently installed a Netgear Nighthawk X6 router. I've replaced the default passwords with 10 digit, random, unrelated characters. Two of my devices (a desktop and a laptop) are running Avast free virus protection. When I run an Avast scan, it says Service is vulnerable to attacks from within your network. When I click on their recommended solution, they say to update the firmware. I've gone to the Netgear website and it says all is updated. I recently vacationed in Colorado. I stayed at a private condo and used their wifi. I ran the Avast scan on my laptop. At...

Full title: Pagliano Emails Detail Attempts to Hack Clinton Unsecure Email Server 10 Times in Two Days in November 2010 – U.S. Secret Service Informed of Hacking Attempts Pagliano Warned Bill Clinton Aide Justin Cooper, ‘We’d Be Susceptible to Such an Attack’ (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released new State Department documents detailing repeated efforts to hack into the unsecure non-state.gov email system used by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in November 2010. The hacks are detailed in email exchanges between State Department IT official Brian Pagliano and Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper. The emails show the system...

A Russian man wanted by the Justice Department on charges connected to hacking U.S. companies now claims the FBI offered him immunity in exchange for accepting responsibility for cyberattacks targeting former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Yevgeny Nikulin, the alleged hacker, laid the claim to Russian media Thursday in a letter sent from a Czech Republic prison cell amid an international extradition battle currently underway between Washington and Moscow. FBI agents promised Mr. Nikulin money, American citizenship and a free apartment for taking the fall over hacking Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, he alleged in a letter published Thursday by Nastoyashchoe Vremya, a...

Leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign said on Friday it had been the target of a "massive" computer hack that dumped its campaign emails online 1-1/2 days before voters choose between the centrist and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

Susan Rice, President Barack Obama's former national security adviser, on Wednesday declined Sen. Lindsey Graham's request to participate in a judiciary subcommittee hearing next week on Russian interference in the US election, CNN has learned. A letter obtained exclusively by CNN from Rice's lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, outlines the grounds for her decision not to appear. It was addressed to Graham, the Republican chairman of the judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism, which is holding the hearing, and senior Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. "Senator Whitehouse has informed us by letter that he did not agree to Chairman Graham's invitation to Ambassador Rice,...

Since FlexiSpy burnt their entire network driving us out, we think it's time for us to release our HowTo guide for aspiring hackers, about what we did, and how you can do it, too. This is going out there to help people learn how to hack and how to defend themselves, as is traditional after these types of hacks. There are lots of articles out there written by other talented hackers that would serve as excellent introductions, but we'd be remiss if we didn't include Phineas Fisher's articles, which are fantastic introductions [1][2][3]. They cover things like how to stay...

The latest dump of hacking tools allegedly belonged to the NSA is believed to be the most damaging release by the Shadow Brokers till the date. But after analyzing the disclosed exploits, Microsoft security team says most of the windows vulnerabilities exploited by these hacking tools, including EternalBlue, EternalChampion, EternalSynergy, EternalRomance and others, are already patched in the last month's Patch Tuesday update. "Most of the exploits that were disclosed fall into vulnerabilities that are already patched in our supported products. Customers still running prior versions of these products are encouraged to upgrade to a supported offering," Microsoft Security Team...

Mike Pompeo said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange portrays himself as a crusader but in fact helps enemies of the United States, including Russia ___ Mike Pompeo said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange portrays himself as a crusader but in fact helps enemies of the United States, including Russia “WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence... And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organisations,” said Pompeo. “It is time to call out...