Search results for "russia"

Unmute, please: Echoes, glitches resound in virtual summit

Climate. Climate. Macron. Macron again. Beep. Beep. Beep. Can someone please tell Vladimir Putin he’s on live? Mr. President, Mr. President? And please unmute yourself, Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Just like the rest of us, world leaders are still figuring out the tech side of virtual work, even more than a year into the […]

US takes new aim at ransomware after costly year for attacks

The Justice Department is taking new aim at ransomware after a year that officials say was the costliest on record for the crippling cyberattacks. Formation of a task force of FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors is an acknowledgment of the growing threat posed by ransomware attacks, in which hackers lock up computer data and […]

US takes steps to protect electric system from cyberattacks

The Biden administration is taking steps to protect the country’s electricity system from cyberattacks through a new 100-day initiative combining federal government agencies and private industry. The initiative, announced Tuesday by the Energy Department, encourages owners and operators of power plants and electric utilities to improve their capabilities for identifying cyber threats to their networks. […]

Suspected Chinese hackers spied on US, European targets

Suspected state-backed Chinese hackers exploited widely used networking devices to spy for months on dozens of high-value government, defense industry and financial sector targets in the U.S. and Europe, according to FireEye, a prominent cybersecurity firm. FireEye said Tuesday that it believes two hacking groups linked to China broke into several targets through Pulse Connect […]

SolarWinds hacking campaign puts Microsoft in the hot seat

The sprawling hacking campaign deemed a grave threat to U.S. national security came to be known as SolarWinds, for the company whose software update was seeded by Russian intelligence agents with malware to penetrate sensitive government and private networks. Yet it was Microsoft whose code the cyber spies persistently abused in the campaign’s second stage, […]

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 […]

Biden names 2 ex-NSA officials for senior cyber positions

President Joe Biden has selected two former senior National Security Agency officials for key cyber jobs in his administration, the White House said Monday in moving to fill out a team whose role has grown more urgent after two major hacks that have consumed the government’s attention. Chris Inglis, a former NSA deputy director, is […]

World leaders call for pandemic treaty, but short on details

More than 20 heads of government and global agencies called in a commentary published Tuesday for an international treaty for pandemic preparedness that they say will protect future generations in the wake of COVID-19. But there were few details to explain how such an agreement might actually compel countries to act more cooperatively. World Health […]

SolarWinds hack got emails of top DHS officials

Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration’s head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries, The Associated Press has learned. The intelligence value of the hacking of then-acting Secretary Chad Wolf and his staff is […]

Big Tech's outsized influence draws state-level pushback

New York state Sen. Michael Gianaris was ecstatic when Amazon named Long Island City in 2018 as a front-runner for its new headquarters, a project that would bring 25,000 jobs and $2.5 billion in construction spending to his district in Queens. But his support faded quickly when he learned that state and city leaders had […]