Search results for "cyber attacks"

Senate eyes R&D bill to counter China, bolster manufacturing

What started as a pragmatic effort to boost scientific research and development has morphed into sweeping Senate bill aimed at making the U.S. more competitive with China and other countries, including $50 billion in emergency funds to shore up domestic computer chip manufacturing. The American Innovation and Competition Act is key to President Joe Biden’s […]

Ransomware hits AXA units in Asia, hurts Ireland healthcare

Cybercriminals have hit four Asian subsidiaries of the Paris-based insurance company AXA with a ransomware attack, impacting operations in Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Philippines, the insurer said. The criminals claimed to have stolen 3 terabytes of data including medical records and communications with doctors and hospitals. In Ireland, meanwhile, the national healthcare system […]

EXPLAINER: Why the Colonial Pipeline hack matters

A cyberattack on a critical U.S. pipeline is sending ripple effects across the economy, highlighting cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the nation’s aging energy infrastructure. The Colonial Pipeline, which delivers about 45% of the fuel used along the Eastern Seaboard, shut down Friday after a ransomware attack by gang of criminal hackers that calls itself DarkSide. Depending […]

How the Kremlin provides a safe harbor for ransomware

A global epidemic of digital extortion known as ransomware is crippling local governments, hospitals, school districts and businesses by scrambling their data files until they pay up. Law enforcement has been largely powerless to stop it. One big reason: Ransomware rackets are dominated by Russian-speaking cybercriminals who are shielded — and sometimes employed — by […]

Despite hacks, US not seeking widened domestic surveillance

The Biden administration is not planning to step up government surveillance of the U.S. internet even as state-backed foreign hackers and cybercriminals increasingly use it to evade detection, a senior administration official said Friday. The official said the administration, mindful of the privacy and civil liberties implications that could arise, is not currently seeking additional […]

Casting a wide intrusion net: Dozens burned with single hack

The SolarWinds hacking campaign blamed on Russian spies and the “grave threat” it poses to U.S. national security are widely known. A very different — and no less alarming — coordinated series of intrusions also detected in December has gotten considerably less public attention. Nimble, highly skilled criminal hackers believed to operate out of Eastern […]

Amnesty International: Hackers attacking Vietnam dissidents

Amnesty International says it has found that a hacking group known as Ocean Lotus has been staging more spyware attacks on Vietnamese human rights activists in the latest blow to freedom of speech in the communist-ruled country. The human rights group said Wednesday that Amnesty Tech’s Security Lab found evidence of the hacking attempts in […]

US charges North Korean computer programmers in global hacks

The Justice Department has charged three North Korean computer programmers in a broad range of global hacks, including a destructive attack targeting an American movie studio, and in the attempted theft and extortion of more than $1.3 billion from banks and companies, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. The newly unsealed indictment builds off an earlier criminal […]