Search results for "us government "

Hackers targeted SolarWinds earlier than previously known

The hackers who carried out the massive SolarWinds intrusion were in the software company’s system as early as January 2019, months earlier than previously known, the company’s top official said Wednesday. SolarWinds had previously traced the origins of the hack to the fall of 2019 but now believes that hackers were doing “very early recon […]

Amazon to extend pause on police use of facial recognition

Amazon said Tuesday that it will extend its ban on police use of its face-recognition technology beyond the one-year pause it announced last year. Amazon and other technology companies have been under pressure from civil rights activists and their own workers to halt the sale of face-recognition systems to law enforcement agencies. One concern is […]

Russia won't block Twitter, but partial slowdown to continue

Russian authorities on Monday backed away from threats to block Twitter, saying that the social media platform deleted most of the banned content identified by Moscow and expressed “readiness and interest in building a constructive dialogue.” Russia’s state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said it decided not to block Twitter in light of these developments, an announcement […]

US joins global push against violent extremism online

Two years after a white supremacist in New Zealand livestreamed the slaughter of 51 Muslim worshippers on Facebook, French President Emmanuel Macron says the internet continues to be be used by terrorists as a weapon to propagate hate. Macron and other leaders from tech giants and governments around the world — including the U.S. for […]

Microsoft pledges to let EU users keep data inside bloc

Microsoft is pledging to let business and public sector customers in the European Union keep cloud computing data inside the 27-nation bloc to avert concerns about U.S. government access to sensitive information. Microsoft “will go beyond our existing data storage commitments and enable you to process and store all your data in the EU,” said […]

States push back against use of facial recognition by police

Law enforcement agencies across the U.S. have used facial recognition technology to solve homicides and bust human traffickers, but concern about its accuracy and the growing pervasiveness of video surveillance is leading some state lawmakers to hit the pause button. At least seven states and nearly two dozen cities have limited government use of the […]

Biden pushes for diversity in transition to clean energy

As the nation pushes to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and use cleaner energy sources, President Joe Biden’s administration says it wants to ensure diversity among the communities that benefit from the transition and the people who are hired to do the work. The administration says it wants more solar arrays erected in communities […]

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 […]

EU outlines ambitious AI regulations focused on risky uses

Risky uses of artificial intelligence that threaten people’s safety or rights such as live facial scanning should be banned or tightly controlled, European Union officials said Wednesday as they outlined an ambitious package of proposed regulations to rein in the rapidly expanding technology. The draft regulations from the EU’s executive commission include rules for applications […]

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. […]