Security News
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese apps including Alipay and WeChat Pay in an escalation of a trade war that has been unfolding through most of his term. The orders follow two others Trump signed in August banning dealings with the popular video app TikTok as well as the main WeChat messaging app.
Iranian cyber actors are likely behind a campaign that encouraged deadly violence against U.S. state officials certifying the 2020 election results. Titled "Enemies of the People," the website was created on December 6, and by the middle of the month included personal details of individuals that did not support the current U.S. President's claims of voter fraud.
A UN rights expert on Tuesday urged outgoing US President Donald Trump to pardon Julian Assange, saying the WikiLeaks founder is not "An enemy of the American people". "In pardoning Mr Assange, Mr President, you would send a clear message of justice, truth and humanity to the American people and to the world," said Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture.
U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden has criticized the Trump administration over the lack of response regarding the SolarWinds response and for failing to officially attribute the attacks. The SolarWinds hack is "a massive cybersecurity breach against US companies, many of them, as well as federal agencies" according to Biden.
United States secretary of state Mike Pompeo has laid the blame for the SolarWinds hack on Russia, but his boss begs to differ. The Associated Press reports that the White House was set to issue a Friday afternoon statement describing Russia as "The main actor" behind the incident, but that staff were told to stand down instead. At the time of writing the State Department, National Security Agency, White House, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and president Trump all appear not to have attempted to reconcile the administration's conflicting view on the incident.
Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested without evidence that China - not Russia - may be behind the cyberattack against the United States and tried to minimized its impact. Officials at the White House had been prepared to put out a statement Friday afternoon that accused Russia of being "The main actor" in the hack, but were told at the last minute to stand down, according to one U.S. official familiar with the conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
All fingers are pointing to Russia as the source of the worst-ever hack of U.S. government agencies. To be sure, it's not uncommon for administrations to refrain from leveling public accusations of blame for hacks until they've accumulated enough evidence.
When Dutch ethical hacker Victor Gevers tried to alert Secret Service that he was able to guess the password to President Donald Trump's Twitter handle last October, there were plenty of skeptics, most notably at the White House. Now, Dutch prosecutors have determined Gevers did guess the password to the world's most powerful Twitter account, but said that he will not be charged with a crime because he was acting honorably to track down vulnerabilities associated with high-profile accounts.
Gevers shared screenshots of the user-side of the account with the Dutch press to prove he had gained access and may have used the account access to tweet a link to a satirical website as the President. Skeptical it would have been that easy to get into such an influential and safeguarded Twitter account with 88 million followers, everyone refused to accept it had happened.
Dutch prosecutors Wednesday said a man had cracked US President Donald Trump's Twitter account in October despite denials from Washington and the company, but added that the so-called "Ethical hacker" would not face charges. Both the White House and Twitter have strenuously denied reports that the account had been hacked.