Security News
The US government might have subtly signalled that it likely won't hack Russia this month - by telling credulous journalists it has a "Clandestine" plan to, er, launch an attack against its rival before April. Set against the backdrop of the SolarWinds and FireEye hack, and the most recent Hafnium attacks against Microsoft Exchange servers, it isn't hard to imagine presidential PR advisors wanting to give the impression that cyber warfare is their boss's top priority.
Last week, we argued over whether or not the media, including El Reg, should stop using the word hacker as a pejorative. The original meaning of hacker and hacking, in the context of computing, didn't denote criminality nor ill-intent, and referred to an avoidance of a standard solution.
It is Microsoft Exchange and its drooling minion, Outlook. It's easy to get things wrong in Exchange admin.
The Biden administration has urged users of Microsoft's Exchange mail and messaging server to ensure they have not fallen victim to the recently-detected "Hafnium" attack on Exchange Server that Microsoft says originated in China. Microsoft revealed the attack last week and released Exchange security updates.
U.S. federal prosecutors have charged John McAfee, founder of cybersecurity firm McAfee, and his executive advisor Jimmy Gale Watson Jr for cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering. In total, McAfee, Watson, and other members of the McAfee Team were able to collect over $13 million from two cryptocurrency pump-and-dump schemes, according to court documents.
The US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has issued a regulatory notice warning US brokerage firms and brokers of an ongoing phishing campaign using fake compliance audit alerts to harvest information. The domain used in these ongoing phishing attacks was registered just two days ago, on March 3rd, using the NameCheap domain name registrar.
Government imposter scams now come with a new twist that has the potential to make them even more effective, as the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration warns. According to reports received by the Office of the Inspector General, the scammers' tactics arsenal has been updated to include the use of fake IDs designed to look like those used by Federal employees.
An artificial intelligence commission led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is urging the U.S. to boost its AI skills to counter China, including by pursuing "AI-enabled" weapons - something that Google itself has shied away from on ethical grounds. "We have to develop technology that preserves our Western values, but we have to be prepared for a world in which not everyone is doing that," said Andrew Moore, a commissioner and the head of Google Cloud AI. The group has the ear of top lawmakers from both parties, but has attracted criticism for including many members who work for tech companies with big government contracts, and who thus have a lot at stake in federal rules on emerging technology.
The CEO of Gab, a social network favored by the US political right, said the platform had been attacked by "Demon hackers" after an activist group released user data described as an important resource for research on the far right. The activist group called DDoSecrets Collective released the data over the weekend to Wired magazine, claiming it offered "a record of the culture" related to the violent siege of the US Capitol on January 6.
State and local governments will be required to spend a portion of nearly $1.9 billion in annual federal public safety grants on the fight against domestic extremism and improved cybersecurity, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said it was the first time since the agency, which was created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had directed that domestic violent extremism be specified as a national priority in programs to help state and local law enforcement agencies respond to emergencies.