Free Republic

America’s increasing reliance on intermittent power sources and batteries is creating novel risks, according to grid specialists who testified before Congress on July 18.Many of the greatest among them emanate from a key geopolitical rival, China.That’s partly because the new technologies frequently use inverters. When solar panels, wind turbines, and battery systems generate or store direct current electricity, inverters turn it into the alternating current electricity that flows through the grid.Paul N. Stockton, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, opened what he called a “rabbit hole” in response to a question on inverters during the House...

The email account of the U.S. ambassador to China was hacked by Chinese hackers on a mission to attack several American and global targets in recent weeks, including another account at the State Department, according to reports.China-based hackers breached the email account of US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns as part of a recent targeted intelligence-gathering campaign, three US officials familiar with the matter told CNN.The hackers also accessed the email account of Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of State for East Asia, who recently traveled with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China, the people said.The State Department did...

Anyone who downloaded File Recovery & Data Recovery or File Manager are urged to wipe the allegedly compromised apps from their devices. According to cybersecurity firm Pradeo, the supposed file management applications are actually “programmed to launch without users’ interaction, and to silently exfiltrate sensitive users’ data towards various malicious servers based in China.”

Tech giant Microsoft disclosed on Tuesday evening that it discovered a group of Chinese hackers had broken into some of its customers' email systems to gather intelligence. The company began investigating unusual activity within a few weeks of the initial attack, though the culprits were able to repeatedly manipulate credentials to access accounts. According to the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, one federal government agency first detected unusual activity on its Microsoft 365 email cloud environment last month, and immediately reported the activity to Microsoft and CISA. CISA did not identify the government agency in question...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it has contained a cyber incident at the agency’s New York Field Office that reportedly affected a computer network used in child sexual exploitation investigations. In a statement to FedScoop the agency said it is aware of the incident and is working to gain additional information. The agency added: “This is an isolated incident that has been contained. As this is an ongoing investigation the FBI does not have further comment to provide at this time.” Two sources briefed on the matter told the news organization that the incident involved an FBI computer system...

PITTSBURGH — The district attorney’s office said a former employee at Highmark hacked into several customers’ accounts, including a school district and stole thousands of dollars. “You put your money in and it’s up to them to safeguard your money and when that doesn’t happen and you lose its detrimental,” said Lori Hickman. Lori Hickman of Butler County is one of eight victims in Highmark’s major data breach. Allegheny County District Attorney’s office charged Zakayah Scott who worked remotely from South Carolina for Highmark Health. Authorities said Scott had access to customers’ personal information including birthdays, addresses and phone numbers....

The vendor helps CalPERS identify member deaths and make sure that correct payments go to retirees and their beneficiaries.. The personal information of about 769,000 retired CalPERS members was exposed in a third-party data breach that was reported earlier this month. CalSTRS also said it was impacted by the breach and KCRA 3 is trying to learn how many of its members were impacted. CalPERS, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, is the nation's largest public pension fund. It serves more than 2 million members in its retirement system and more than 1.5 million in its health program. CalSTRS, the...

WASHINGTON, June 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy got ransom requests from the Russia-linked extortion group Cl0p at both its nuclear waste facility and scientific education facility that were recently hit in a global hacking campaign, a spokesperson said on Friday. The DOE contractor Oak Ridge Associated Universities and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the New Mexico-based facility for disposal of defense-related radioactive nuclear waste, were hit in the attack, which was first reported on Thursday. Data was "compromised" at the two DOE entities after hackers breached their systems through a security flaw in the file transfer tool...

“Several” US federal government agencies have been hit in a global cyberattack that exploits a vulnerability in widely used software. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency “is providing support to several federal agencies that have experienced intrusions” affecting vulnerable software exploited by the hackers, Eric Goldstein, the agency’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity, said in a statement on Thursday to CNN. “We are working urgently to understand impacts and ensure timely remediation.”

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it had uncovered an American espionage operation that compromised thousands of iPhones using sophisticated surveillance software.

Microsoft has uncovered stealthy and targeted malicious activity focused on post-compromise credential access and network system discovery aimed at critical infrastructure organizations in the United States. The attack is carried out by Volt Typhoon, a state-sponsored actor based in China that typically focuses on espionage and information gathering. Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that this Volt Typhoon campaign is pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises. Volt Typhoon has been active since mid-2021 and has targeted critical infrastructure organizations in Guam and elsewhere in the United States....

This chilling story is enough to make your stomach turn as Ryan Montgomery shares the details of how he became involved and uncovered a website that led to the discovery of its owner, Nathan Larson, a former congressional candidate. These individuals, who have perpetrated terrible and horrific crimes that will affect their victims for the rest of their lives, have thus far escaped justice. However, Ryan and his partner are actively pursuing them.

San Bernardino County paid a $1.1 million ransom to hackers who infiltrated the Sheriff's Department computers, officials acknowledged Friday. Last month, the department admitted a hack encrypted many of its files, disrupting systems and blocking access to data. County officials told ABC News on Friday that the county carries insurance for such attacks and its share of the ransom came out to just over $511,000. After negotiating with the hackers, the insurance company and county agreed to pay to restore the system to its full functionality and secure data.

A ChatGPT vulnerability may have exposed payment-related information of some customers of the AI tool, as well as allowing titles from some active user’s chat history to be viewed, OpenAI has revealed. In a blog post published on March 24, 2023, the company provided details of a data breach caused by a bug in an open source library, which forced it to take ChatGPT temporarily offline on Monday March 20. After patching the vulnerability, OpenAI was able to restore both the Chat GPT service and, later, its chat history feature, with the exception of a few hours of history. The...

** A team of web developers found numerous security issues in California's digital license plate carrier, Reviver. ** With access through the plate's SIM card, hackers were able to see the real-time location and registration address, delete or alter the tag, and even mislabeled the vehicle as stolen. ** Reviver has patched the issues since, but privacy advocates say the digital plate program poses security and data challenges that outweigh the supposed convenience.

UPDATED Rackspace has admitted a ransomware infection was to blame for the days-long email outage that disrupted services for customers. The security snafu took down some of Rackspace's hosted Microsoft Exchange services on Friday afternoon [12/02/2022]. In its most recent update, posted at 0826 Eastern Time on Tuesday [12/06/2022], Rackspace said it has now "determined this suspicious activity was the result of a ransomware incident," and has hired a "leading cyber defense firm to investigate." The company hasn't yet determined what customer data was touched. "If we determine sensitive information was affected, we will notify customers as appropriate," it added.

Data stolen from a major Australian health insurer that had earlier refused to pay ransomSydney: Hackers on Wednesday began leaking sensitive medical records stolen from a major Australian health insurer that had earlier refused to pay the group's ransom demand. Medibank told investors and customers that a "sample" of data from some 9.7 million clients had been posted on a "dark web forum". Names, birth dates, addresses, passport numbers and information on medical claims were among the sensitive personal data posted anonymously early Wednesday. Medibank said more leaks were likely.

Recently Biden was propped up behind a podium to holler threats to “2020 election deniers”. It was laughable, pathetic even, as his own have been mewling and puking about stolen elections for the past six years. My answer: FORGET 2020! The proof of our duly elected government being stolen in a successful Coup has been there for all to see since November 4 of that year. Only the most afflicted with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), that viral mental condition apparently more potent than Covid for some, still think Biden is really our President. They may never recover, but I frankly...

Moreover similar alerts were issued in the regions of Cherkassy and Kirovograd, and in the city of Zaporozhye KIEV, October 20./TASS/.The city administration of Ukraine's capital Kiev declared an air raid warning in the early hours of Thursday. "Attention! Air raid alert issued for Kiev. We urge everyone to urgently proceed to civil protection shelters," the city administration said in its Telegram channel...

Meta's researchers have discovered more than 400 malicious Android and Apple apps designed to steal personal Facebook logins. The applications are disguised as games, photo editors, and health and lifestyle services. Often, app users are asked to log in with their Facebook, which enables hackers to steal logins and passwords.