Microsoft: State-sponsored Chinese hackers could be laying groundwork for disruption
Microsoft says state-backed Chinese hackers have been targeting U.S. critical infrastructure and could be laying the technical groundwork for the potential disruption of communications between the U.S. and Asia in future crises.
General says attacks by foreign hackers are 'clarion call'
(Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times via AP, Pool)WASHINGTON โ 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. AdNakasone said one challenge is that foreign state hackers have taken advantage of legal constraints that prevent U.S. intelligence agencies such as the NSA, whose surveillance is focused abroad, from monitoring domestic infrastructure for cyber threats. Hackers are increasingly using U.S.-based virtual private networks, or VPNs, to evade detection by the U.S. government. โWe as U.S. Cyber Command or the National Security Agency may see what is occurring outside of the United States, but when it comes into the United States, our adversaries are moving very quickly. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee singled out the telecommunications sector โ a big target in the SolarWinds hack โ as being especially resistant.
Ann Arbor cybersecurity startup Blumiraโs rapid growth continues with hiring push
ANN ARBOR โ Local cybersecurity startup Blumira has plans to double its headcount in 2021. With a team of 25, Blumira plans to double its headcount by the end of the year with a focus on hiring additional leadership roles and growing its sales and engineering teams. Part of Blumiraโs success over the past year is due to its adoption of SaaS applications and migration to the cloud. Most recently, he led product management at Duo Security, which was acquired by Cisco in 2018 for $2.35 billion. in computer science and was head of UX and engineering at Arbor Networks (acquired by NETSCOUT in 2015) prior to his role at Duo Security.
Senator: Treasury Dept. email accounts compromised in hack
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)WASHINGTON โ Dozens of email accounts at the Treasury Department were compromised in a massive breach of U.S. government agencies being blamed on Russia, with hackers breaking into systems used by the department's highest-ranking officials. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., provided new details of the hack following a briefing to Senate Finance Committee staff by the IRS and Treasury Department. A Treasury Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Wyden's statement Monday. Microsoft notified the Treasury Department that dozens of email accounts were compromised, Wyden said. President Donald Trump sought to downplay the severity of the hack last week, tweeting without any evidence that perhaps China was responsible.
Senator: Treasury Dept. email accounts compromised in hack
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., provided new details of the hack following a briefing to Senate Finance Committee staff by the IRS and Treasury Department. Wyden said that though there is no indication that taxpayer data was compromised, the hack โappears to be significant,โ including through the compromise of dozens of email accounts and access to the Departmental Offices division of the Treasury Department, which the senator said was home to its highest-ranking officials. A Treasury Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Wyden's statement. Microsoft notified the Treasury Department that dozens of email accounts were compromised, Wyden said. President Donald Trump sought to downplay the severity of the hack last week, tweeting without any evidence that perhaps China was responsible.
Pentagon plan on cyber split draws strong Hill criticism
A U.S. official confirmed Saturday that the Pentagon has a plan for separating the National Security Agency and Cyber Command. In his letter to Miller, Smith said the Pentagon has not met conditions set by the 2017 defense bill for severing the NSA from Cyber Command. The notion of splitting NSA from Cyber Command goes back to the Obama administration, which proposed to elevate the status of Cyber Command by making it a unified military command, taking it from under the purview of U.S. Strategic Command. That move was approved by President Donald Trump in 2017, and it was foreseen that at some point Cyber Command would split away from the NSA, although such a move had strong opponents in Congress. It's not clear who the Trump administration might install as head of the NSA if it were split from Cyber Command before President-elect Joe Biden takes office Jan. 20.
Documents show NSA again improperly collected call records
National Security Agency via CNNWASHINGTON - Documents released Wednesday show the National Security Agency improperly collected phone records four months after it said it had fixed technical problems that caused another similar collection of unauthorized and inaccurate data that violated federal law. This is the second time the NSA has publicly acknowledged it improperly collected phone records. The NSA previously received phone records it was not authorized to collect in February 2018 and that because it couldn't distinguish what was authorized, it would delete the more than 600 million records collected since 2015. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who has been critical of the NSA surveillance program, said the revelation is further evidence of the need to end the program. It notably concluded after the Snowden disclosures that the NSA's phone surveillance program was illegal.