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In mid-April, a senior FBI official warned that cyber spies were attacking U.S. and allied medical research institutions developing coronavirus vaccines. The U.S. Department of Justice later pegged China as the chief witch doctor of medical espionage and suggested a crash American COVID-19/Wuhan virus vaccine project nicknamed Operation Warp Speed is Beijing's major target. During World War II, American leaders feared Nazi Germany sought a nuclear weapons program. So at warp speed, the Manhattan Project split atoms in an experimental reactor and then developed and deployed operational atomic bombs. The "crash" Manhattan Project gave the U.S. and its allies a...

Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American citizen who helped establish a pro-Tehran lobbying group in America, has been arrested in Iran and imprisoned indefinitely. -excerpt- Namazi has been described as one of the “intellectual architects” of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group that has been accused of working in support of the regime in Tehran. He and NIAC Director Trita Parsi founded the organization as a way to continuously lobby for the removal of sanctions against Iran and to promote Iran’s foreign policy, while combating the pro-Israel sentiment in America, according to documents from a Cyprus convention...

As American researchers are working hard to develop a vaccine and a cure for the Chinese coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, Chinese Communist Party hackers are targeting American research for cyberattacks, according to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Rogue actors have increased cybertheft and attacks amid the coronavirus pandemic. “China’s long history of bad behavior in cyberspace is well documented, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone they are going after the critical organizations involved in the nation’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told The New York...

Unknown activists have posted nearly 25,000 email addresses and passwords allegedly belonging to the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation and other groups working to combat the coronavirus pandemic, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism and terrorist groups. While SITE was unable to verify whether the email addresses and passwords were authentic, the group said the information was released Sunday and Monday and almost immediately used to foment attempts at hacking and harassment by far-right extremists. An Australian cybersecurity expert, Robert Potter, said he was able to verify that the WHO...

I dont know where to post this here. Figure people would be interested. The fun starts on page 158

As the video conferencing platform Zoom has grown in popularity during the novel coronavirus pandemic, so have instances of “Zoom bombing.” Zoom bombing is when someone joins your meeting and disrupts it in some way. Create a unique ID Instead of using the personal meeting ID Zoom assigns when you create an account, pcmag.com recommends you instead generate a unique code. Create a waiting room By creating a waiting room, the host and/or co-hosts can control who joins a meeting. The “waiting room” option can be found under account settings. Once enabled, the host can either put everyone in the...

I won't name the source, but Fort Worth ISD has suffered a serious data breach, and the main computer system could be down until after spring break. Got kids or a spouse in Fort Worth ISD? Watch your bank accounts or personal files.

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...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. defense agency responsible for secure White House communications said Social Security numbers and other personal data in its network may have been compromised, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Thursday that was sent to people possibly affected

   ~ Monday, February 10, 2020 Remarks as Prepared for DeliveryGood morning.  I am here to announce the indictment of Chinese military hackers – specifically, four members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army – for breaking into the computer systems of the credit-reporting agency Equifax, and for stealing the sensitive personal information of nearly half of all American citizens, and also Equifax’s hard-earned intellectual property.This was one of the largest data breaches in history.  It came to light in the summer of 2017, when Equifax announced the theft.  The scale of the theft was staggering.  As alleged in the...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, February 10, 2020   Indictment Alleges Four Members of China’s People’s Liberation Army Engaged in a Three-Month Long Campaign to Steal Sensitive Personal Information of Nearly 150 Million Americans A federal grand jury in Atlanta returned an indictment last week charging four members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with hacking into the computer systems of the credit reporting agency Equifax and stealing Americans’ personal data and Equifax’s valuable trade secrets.The nine-count indictment alleges that Wu Zhiyong (吴志勇), Wang Qian (王乾), Xu Ke(许可) and Liu Lei (刘磊)...

WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - The United States has charged four Chinese military hackers in the 2017 breach of the Equifax credit reporting agency that affected nearly 150 million American citizens, Attorney General William Barr said Monday. "This was one of the largest data breaches in history," Barr said of the theft, which came to light in the summer of 2017. The indictment charges four members of the Chinese Liberation Army, he said.

Hackers attacked two of Facebook’s official Twitter accounts Friday night. The official Twitter account @Facebook and that of its messaging app, @Messenger, posted identical messages shortly before 7 p.m. Friday evening saying, “Hi, we are O u r M i n e. Well, even Facebook is hackable but at least their security better than Twitter.” A Twitter spokesperson confirmed to The Hill the two accounts were hacked, saying they were attacked “through a third-party platform.” “As soon as we were made aware of the issue, we locked the compromised accounts and are working closely with our partners at Facebook to...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager is providing free and discounted cybersecurity services for political candidates ahead of 2020 elections . . . DDC is intended to help protect campaigns against phishing, as well as provide them with secure websites and mobile app security, among other services. Matt Rhoades, GOP Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign manager, co-founded the venture alongside Mook

During his twelve-year reign as FBI Director, Robert Mueller not only protected his criminal friends by silencing those who could expose their bad acts, he projected his friends’ crimes onto others in order to fraudulently appoint a Special Counsel. And the FISA court judge Reggie Walton — who was hacked by Obama officials John Brennan and James Clapper, according to whistleblower evidence — has been involved in more than one of these plots. There is no better Deep State tool for punishing your enemies than a fraudulent Special Counsel (who is not accountable to anyone) with an unlimited budget and...

Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s most powerful and richest men, is levelling severe allegations against the Saudis, and once again, he has nothing to show for them. The media has been set ablaze by an “exclusive” report in The Guardian, a United Nations report, and even a documentary film, all dropped at once, alleging that Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia is personally responsible for “hacking” into a personal phone belonging to Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest men and the owner of Amazon and The Washington Post.The “bombshell” report in The Guardian, published Tuesday evening, was...

Summary New vulnerabilities are continually emerging, but the best defense against attackers exploiting patched vulnerabilities is simple: keep software up to date. Timely patching is one of the most efficient and cost-effective steps an organization can take to minimize its exposure to cybersecurity threats. On January 14, 2020, Microsoft released software fixes to address 49 vulnerabilities as part of their monthly Patch Tuesday announcement. Among the vulnerabilities patched were critical weaknesses in Windows CryptoAPI and Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) server and client. An attacker could remotely exploit these vulnerabilities to decrypt, modify, or inject data on user connections: CryptoAPI...

The New York Times reported on Monday that hackers from the Russian military intelligence unit known as the GRU succeeded in hacking Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company that Hunter Biden sat on the board of, and that Joe Biden protected from investigation by withholding $1 billion in aid unless Ukrainian officials fired the prosecutor investigating the company.GRU is responsible for other high-profile hacks of the DNC and John Podesta. Seven GRU officers were indicted in 2018 for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 election. The hacking attempts against Burisma began in early November, as the Democrats' impeachment efforts...

As we enter 2020, it appears all too obvious that information warfare (IW) across the globe will worsen. Federal officials expect new attacks for the 2020 elections and have now warned Moscow that they will retaliate if such attacks do occur. Interference in elections, however, is not a Russia only affair. China has interfered in Taiwan's and other Asian elections and is conducting a large, well-funded campaign to insert itself into U.S. media even as it conducts massive influence operations here and globally. Although several worthwhile initiatives have been launched to counter Russian and other cyber and information warfare, the...

If you’re a law enforcement official who has more allegiance to ideology than to the law or to the country, where does that get you? For former FBI analyst Mark Tolson, the answer is jail — however briefly. Tolson is best-known — if he’s known at all — as the man who broke into a pro-Trump operative’s email account in October 2018, took screen-shots of some of the messages, then sent images to a reporter and offered the reporter the password, according to Politico. The unnamed member of the media turned down the opportunity. Tolson, 60, said he did it...