Security News
The new guidelines, explained on a media call last Thursday and in a press release last Friday, say the FBI will notify a state's chief election official and other local election workers in the event of any cyberattack. "Understanding that mitigation of such incidents often hinges on timely notification, the FBI has established a new internal policy outlining how the FBI will notify state and local officials responsible for administering election infrastructure of cyber activity targeting their infrastructure," the FBI statement said.
Two years ago, Apple abandoned its plan to encrypt iPhone backups in the iCloud in such a way that makes it impossible for it to decrypt the contents, a Reuters report claimed on Tuesday. Based on information received by multiple unnamed FBI and Apple sources, the report says that the decision was made after Apple shared its plan for end-to-end encrypted iCloud backups with the FBI and the FBI objected to it.
Apple ditched plans to fully encrypt its iCloud backups two years ago after being pressured by the FBI, it is claimed. Under this plan, Apple would no longer have the key to unlock encrypted data, meaning it would no longer be able provide decrypted backups of its users to the authorities, even under court order.
The FBI has seized the domain for WeLeakInfo.com, a site that sold breached data records, after a multinational effort by law enforcement. The FBI and the District of Columbia explained that the site had harvested over 12 billion records from over 10,000 data breaches, including names, email addresses, usernames, phone numbers, and passwords.
So said Shelby Pierson, the election security threats executive for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, speaking at an Election Assistance Commission event earlier this month. It's probably a good idea for the FBI to warn local and state election officials of hacking attempts, and last week, it announced just that.
A website that sold stolen personal data to subscribers, has been seized by the FBI in an action supported by the UK's National Crime Agency, the Dutch National Police Corp, the German Bundeskriminalamt, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The searchable data was claimed to be a total of 12 billion records gathered from 10,000 data breeches.
The FBI has changed its policy around election cybersecurity and said it will now notify state officials in the event that local election systems are hacked. Previously, the FBI would inform these parties but didn't necessarily share the information with state election officials, a move that came under fire from state lawmakers and Congress for not going far enough to protect the integrity of elections from cyberattacks.
The FBI has created a new policy to give "Timely" breach notifications to state and local officials concerning election hacking and foreign interference. It will also require agents to work directly with state and local election officials to identify and mitigate cyberthreats to election infrastructure as quickly as possible, according to the FBI announcement.
The FBI, in a change of policy, is committing to inform state officials if local election systems have been breached, federal officials said Thursday. Now the FBI will notify both counties victimized by breaches as well as the state's chief election official - in most cases, the secretary of state.
Apple has responded to a demand from the United States' Attorney General William Barr that it grant the FBI access to two iPhones used in a recent shooting by carefully calling bullshit on his claims. Barr held a press conference on Monday in which he accused Apple of not having given the FBI "Any substantive assistance" in the case of Saudi airman Mohammed al-Shamrani, who shot and killed three American sailors at a naval base in Pensacola, Florida.