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Chinese hackers are preparing to launch a major attack on critical U.S. infrastructure and have already infiltrated multiple companies according to the FBI. FBI Director Chris Wray revealed today China is developing the capability to cause significant damage to our critical infrastructure at a time of their choosing. The only question is the time to launch a catastrophic blow. “China is developing the ability to physically wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing,” Wray said at the 2024 Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats. “Its plan is to land low blows against civilian...

Last May I wrote about a group of Chinese hackers who'd been identified by Microsoft after malware was discovered in telecom systems on the island of Guam. Microsoft named the hacking group "Volt Typhoon."Microsoft called the hacking group “Volt Typhoon” and said that it was part of a state-sponsored Chinese effort aimed at not only critical infrastructure such as communications, electric and gas utilities, but also maritime operations and transportation. The intrusions appeared, for now, to be an espionage campaign. But the Chinese could use the code, which is designed to pierce firewalls, to enable destructive attacks, if they choose.Today,...

The hacking of a UnitedHealth affiliate is a symptom of consolidation within the health care sector, and it’s likely to get even worse.In a bid to win reelection, the Biden administration keeps trying to sell the country on all the supposed benefits of Obamacare. Before continuing their sales campaign, they might want to check in with the doctors’ offices struggling to make payroll.For over a month, the multitrillion-dollar health care sector has had to respond to a hack on a payment processor owned by UnitedHealthGroup, the nation’s largest insurer. Axios reported that hospitals, doctors, medical equipment suppliers, and pharmacies are...

Living off the Land: How hackers blend into your environment Cyber-criminals are increasingly ‘Living off the Land’, leveraging commonly-used tools to fly under the radar of conventional cyber defenses. Discover why Self-Learning AI is uniquely positioned to identify attacks leveraging this technique. What is Living off the Land attack? Living off the Land is a strategy which involves threat actors leveraging the utilities readily available within the target organization’s digital environment to move through the cyber kill chain. This is a popular method because It is often cheaper, easier, and more effective to make use of an organization’s own infrastructure...

Independent journalist Lara Logan’s report on the “accident” is very different from the reports in the mainstream media.Here’s what Logan had to say about the cargo ship’s “accident” with the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore:Multiple intel sources: The Baltimore bridge collapse was an “absolutely brilliant strategic attack” on US critical infrastructure – most likely cyber – & our intel agencies know it. In information warfare terms, they just divided the US along the Mason-Dixon line, exactly like the Civil War.The second busiest strategic roadway in the nation for hazardous material is now down for 4-5 years – which is...

A trove of leaked documents from a Chinese state-linked hacking group shows that Beijing’s intelligence and military groups are attempting large-scale, systematic cyber intrusions against foreign governments, companies and infrastructure — with hackers of one company claiming to be able to target users of Microsoft, Apple and Google. The cache — containing more than 570 files, images and chat logs — offers an unprecedented look inside the operations of one of the firms that Chinese government agencies hire for on-demand, mass data-collecting operations. The files — posted to GitHub last week and deemed credible by cybersecurity experts, although the source...

The leaked documents supposedly discuss spyware developed by I-Soon, a Chinese infosec company, that’s targeting social media platforms, telecommunications companies, and other organizations worldwide. Researchers suspect the operations are orchestrated by the Chinese government. Unknown individuals allegedly leaked a trove of Chinese government documents on GitHub. The documents reveal how China conducts offensive cyber operations with spyware developed by I-Soon, Taiwanese threat intelligence researcher Azaka Sekai claims. While several researchers have analyzed the supposedly leaked documents, no official confirmation of their veracity exists as of the writing of this article. We have reached out to I-Soon but did not receive...

Beijing, now Moscow.… Who else is hiding in broadband gateways?The US government today said it disrupted a botnet that Russia's GRU military intelligence unit used for phishing expeditions, spying, credential harvesting, and data theft against American and foreign governments and other strategic targets. This latest court-authorized takedown happened in January, and involved neutralizing "well over a thousand" home and small business routers that had been infected with the Moobot malware, which is a Mirai variant, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at the Munich Cyber Security Conference on Thursday. Moobot can be used to remote-control compromised devices and launch...

Ford Motor Company is planning to contract technology and software from at least four Chinese firms that supply similar services to the Chinese government and military, and the North Korean government, according to contracts obtained by Republican investigators. The revelations — which were released Monday by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., the chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. — are part of the GOP's ongoing joint investigation into Ford's partnership with Fujian, China-based electric vehicle (EV) battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL).

The goal, the report describes, is to find ways to “sow panic and chaos or snarl logistics in the event of a U.S.-China conflict in the Pacific.” China’s threat to America now includes schemes to disrupt power and water supplies, communications and even transportation systems, according to officials cited in a new report. Experts quoted by the Washington Post explained that hackers linked to China’s People’s Liberation Army already have succeeded in breaching “the computer systems of about two dozen critical entities over the past year.” The goal, the report describes, is to find ways to “sow panic and chaos...

About 60 credit unions in the US are experiencing outages because of a ransomware attack on an IT provider the credit unions use, a federal agency said Friday. The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the agency that insures deposits at federally insured credit unions, said in a statement to CNN that it was “coordinating with affected credit unions” in the wake of the hack. The full extent of the outage and its impact on credit unions was unclear Friday evening. One of the affected credit unions, New York-based Mountain Valley Federal Credit Union, said that technicians from the hacked IT...

**SNIP** 1. Using out-of-date software Keiran told MailOnline that one of the first things he and other hackers look for when preparing an attack is out-of-date software. 'Out-of-date software is a really big issue because, if the software has been updated, it's probably because there is a security issue', he explained. Software, whether it is the operating system of your iPhone or the control system for a factory, often has some sort of vulnerability. While these can quickly fixed by developers, they are also often shared online through forums and hacker communities. If you haven't updated your software to include...

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has struggled to stop a hyper-aggressive cybercrime gang that's been tormenting corporate America over the last two years, according to nine cybersecurity responders, digital crime experts and victims. For more than six months, the FBI has known the identities of at least a dozen members tied to the hacking group responsible for the devastating September break-ins at casino operators MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment, according to four people familiar with the investigation. Industry executives have told Reuters they were baffled by an apparent lack of arrests despite many...

In what is suspected to be the biggest data leak case in the country so far, details of 81.5 crore Indians with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) are on sale. Given the grave nature of the incident, India’s premier agency Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is likely to probe the matter once ICMR files a complaint. A ‘threat actor’ with a handle on X, formerly Twitter, has advertised the database in the breached forum on dark web which involves records of 815 million Indian citizens — Aadhaar and passport information along with names, phone numbers and addresses. The...

Fani Willis, the Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney, is seemingly intent upon being the next Alvin Bragg, as she busily puts together an indictment based on questionable facts, currently mysterious legal theories, and, most importantly, leaks to the media. It’s the last that concerns us today because CNN is very excited: On January 7, the outlet strongly imply, Donald Trump’s team, everyone from Rudy Guiliani to Sidney Powell, hacked into, or oversaw someone else hacking into, the Coffee County election software. Except that, according to CNN itself, that’s not what happened. The story has a scream headline: “Exclusive: Georgia prosecutors...

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...