Free Republic

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....

Researchers say suspected nation-state hackers infected Apple iPhones with spyware over two years in what security experts on Friday called an alarming security failure for a company whose calling card is privacy. A mere visit to one of a small number of tainted websites could infect an iPhone with an implant capable of sending the smartphone owner's text messages, email, photos and real-time location data to the cyberspies behind the operation. "This is definitely the most serious iPhone hacking incident that's ever been brought to public attention, both because of the indiscriminate targeting and the amount of data compromised by...

Summer Worden said her 6-year-old son is her world. Worden said the child was conceived through in vitro fertilization and carried by a surrogate. When her son turned 1, Worden said she met Anne McClain. Worden and the astronaut were married eight months later but three years into the relationship, she said things got rocky. In 2018, McClain asked a judge to grant her shared parenting rights of the child, saying in documents, "She was there for his first steps and first words" and that they had “a very healthy and deep parental relationship." Later that year, McClain filed court...

A ransomware attack has hit at least 20 local government entities in Texas, the State's Department of Information Resources (DIR) announced on Friday. When a ransomware attack occurs, a computer cannot be utilized until a ransom is paid.The Texas Division of Emergency Management is currently assisting. As of now, DIR, the Texas Military Department and the Texas A&M University System’s Cyber Response and Security Operations Center have deployed teams to the "most critically impacted jurisdictions." As requests come in, other resources will be implemented. The goal is to provide computing services and expertise that would get local entities back online, The...

State Department confirms multiple security incidents involving Clinton email investigation Fifteen individuals are believed to have mishandled classified information. Interviews with intelligence community officials have revealed that senior FBI leaders "seemed indifferent to evidence of a possible intrusion by a foreign adversary" into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s non-government email server, and that State Department officials allegedly sought to "downgrade classified material found on the server," according to Senate investigators still probing the matter. The information was contained in a letter and interview transcripts sent Monday by the majority staff on the Senate Finance and Homeland Security and Governmental...

A federal judge in frank terms Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) against key members of the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over hacked DNC documents, saying they "did not participate in any wrongdoing in obtaining the materials in the first place" and therefore bore no legal liability for disseminating the information. The ruling came as Democrats increasingly have sought to tie the Trump team to illegal activity in Russia, in spite of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings that the campaign in fact refused multiple offers by Russians to involve them in hacking and disinformation efforts....

A federal judge in frank terms has dismissed a lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) against key members of the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over hacked DNC documents, saying they "did not participate in any wrongdoing in obtaining the materials in the first place" and therefore bore no legal liability for disseminating the information. The ruling came as Democrats have increasingly sought to tie the Trump team to illegal activity in Russia, in spite of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings that the campaign in fact refused multiple offers by Russians to involve them in hacking and disinformation efforts. The...

A Seattle-based transgender former Amazon engineer has been arrested for allegedly hacking Capital One bank's systems to steal data it was storing on Amazon's Web Services cloud. Paige Thompson, 33, was arrested for breaking into the bank's systems to steal the addresses, phone numbers and names of 100million people in the United States. A portion of that figure - 140,000 - also had their social security numbers and 80,000 had their credit card details accessed. Thompson allegedly pulled it off between March and July of this year by breaking into the bank's servers through a misconfiguration in its firewall. The...

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...

Capital One says a hacker got access to the personal information of over 100 million individuals applying for credit. The McLean, Virginia-based bank said Monday it found out about the vulnerability in its system July 19 and immediately sought help from law enforcement to catch the perpetrator.

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...

'Defending democracy' initiative to resist nation-state attacks Microsoft has demonstrated its ElectionGuard electronic vote system at the Aspen Security Forum under way in Colorado and warned that nearly 10,000 of its customers have been targeted by nation-state attacks.ElectionGuard aims to enable end-to-end verification of voting. Voters receive a tracking code and can check via a web portal that their vote has been counted, and, crucially, not altered. The portal does not show the content of the vote, protecting voter confidentiality. "It will not be possible to 'hack' the vote without detection," said Microsoft's Tom Burt, CVP of Customer Security and...

(Gateway Pundit) – Much has happened since our post May 25th – “Rumors Swirling that Fired Italian Spies Were Connected in Plot to Eliminate Trump”. The Gateway Pundit reported on rumors swirling that the recent firings of top Italian spies were related to Obama and a plot to set up candidate and President Trump during the 2016 election. As reported on May 25th==>> Earlier this month Italian Prime Minister Conte asked for the resignations of four top intelligence officials after his call with President Donald Trump. And now another Internet Sleuth has uncovered some shocking news related to the recent...

The foundation for the Russian election interference narrative is built on the claim of Russians hacking the servers of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), and subsequently releasing damaging emails that showed the DNC worked to help Hillary Clinton and eliminate Bernie Sanders. Despite the Russian ‘hacking’ claim the DOJ previously admitted the DNC would not let FBI investigators review the DNC server. Instead the DNC provided the FBI with analysis of a technical review done through a cyber-security contract with Crowdstrike.

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...

For nearly three weeks, Baltimore has struggled with a cyberattack by digital extortionists that has frozen thousands of computers, shut down email and disrupted real estate sales, water bills, health alerts and many other services. *snip* Since 2017, when the N.S.A. lost control of the tool, EternalBlue, it has been picked up by state hackers in North Korea, Russia and, more recently, China, to cut a path of destruction around the world, leaving billions of dollars in damage.

Rumors are swirling that the recent firings of top Italian spies were related to Obama and a plot to set up candidate and President Trump in a Hillary email scandal. Earlier this month Italian Prime Minister Conte asked for the resignations of four top intelligence officials after his call with President Donald Trump. And now another Internet Sleuth has uncovered some shocking news related to the recent removal of these top Italian intelligence ministers from their positions as top spies in the government. The story begins in January 2017 when Computer World wrote about alleged crimes committed by Italian Giulio...

Full Title: Member of Sophisticated China-Based Hacking Group Indicted for Series of Computer Intrusions, Including 2015 Data Breach of Health Insurer Anthem Inc. Affecting Over 78 Million People FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, May 9, 2019 A federal grand jury returned an indictment unsealed today in Indianapolis, Indiana, charging a Chinese national as part of an extremely sophisticated hacking group operating in China and targeting large businesses in the United States, including a computer intrusion and data breach of Indianapolis-based health insurer Anthem Inc. (Anthem). Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice DepartmentÂ’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Josh Minkler...

Rod Rosenstein, the U.S. deputy attorney general who supervised the Mueller investigation, spoke publically on Thursday for the first time since the report was released, taking a swipe at the Obama administration’s real-time reaction to Russian hacking and its decision "not publicize the full story" to the American people. Rosenstein, who was speaking in New York at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association, defended his handling of the probe and criticized former officials in the process. He called out former FBI Director James Comey for alerting Congress about the investigation into Russian collusion at the height of...

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