Cybersecurity

Facebook says it halts hackers tied to Palestinian security

Facebook said Wednesday it has broken up a hacker network used by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ intelligence service in an attempt to keep tabs on journalists, human rights activists and government critics. The report by the social networking giant threatened to deal another embarrassing blow to Abbas’ Fatah party weeks ahead of parliamentary elections. Fatah, […]

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 […]

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 […]

Sanctioned Russian IT firm was partner with Microsoft, IBM

The Treasury Department on Thursday slapped six Russian technology companies with sanctions for supporting Kremlin intelligence agencies engaged in “dangerous and disruptive cyber attacks.” But only one of them stands out for its international footprint and partnerships with such IT heavyweights as Microsoft and IBM. That company, Positive Technologies, claims more than 2,000 customers in […]

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 […]

Clubhouse CEO pushes back against user data leaks targeting app

Paul Davison, CEO of the popular drop-in audio app Clubhouse, pushed back on Sunday against reports that personal user data from the platform had been leaked online. Late last week, CyberNews reported that an SQL database containing 1.3 million scraped Clubhouse user records leaked for free on a popular hacker forum. The database consisted of […]

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 […]

General says attacks by foreign hackers are 'clarion call'

The U.S. Cyber Command conducted more than two dozen operations aimed at thwarting interference in last November’s presidential election, the general who leads the Pentagon’s cyber force said Thursday. Gen. Paul Nakasone did not describe the nature of the operations in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee but said they were designed “to get […]