from Lawfare Uber’s former chief security officer (CSO), Joe Sullivan, was found guilty on Oct. 5 of obstruction of justice (18 U.S.C. § 1505) and misprision of a felony (18 U.S.C. § 4) based on what the Justice Department called his “attempted cover-up of a 2016 hack of Uber.” In 2016, while the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was investigating Uber for an earlier incident, Sullivan learned of another hacking incident that affected the Uber accounts of more than 57 million riders and drivers. In its prosecution of Sullivan, the government alleged that, rather than disclose the incident to the FTC, […]
Continue readingTag Archives: Cybersecurity
Fake Cops Scammed Apple and Meta to Get User Data
from Wired “Ipsa scientia potestas est,” 16th-century philosopher and statesman Sir Frances Bacon famously wrote in his 1597 work, Meditationes Sacrae. Knowledge itself is power. The aphorism, cliché as it may be, takes on a palpable truth in times of war. Just ask the people of Mariupol, a city in southeastern Ukraine, where Russia’s devastating attacks have cut off the flow of information in and out of the city. Meanwhile, in Russia, the government has banned Facebook and Instagram amid its crackdown on news without the state’s stamp of approval. But as we explained this week, building a full China-style […]
Continue readingNorth Korea Hacked Him. So He Took Down Its Internet
from Wired FOR THE PAST two weeks, observers of North Korea’s strange and tightly restricted corner of the internet began to notice that the country seemed to be dealing with some serious connectivity problems. On several different days, practically all of its websites—the notoriously isolated nation only has a few dozen—intermittently dropped offline en masse, from the booking site for its Air Koryo airline to Naenara, a page that serves as the official portal for dictator Kim Jong-un’s government. At least one of the central routers that allow access to the country’s networks appeared at one point to be paralyzed, […]
Continue readingThe Next Cyberattack Is Already Under Way
from The New Yorker In the nightmare, sirens caterwaul as ambulances career down ice-slicked, car-crashed streets whose traffic lights flash all three colors at once (they’ve been hacked by North Korea) during a climate-catastrophic blizzard, bringing pandemic patients to hospitals without water or electricity—pitch-black, all vaccinations and medications spoiled (the power grid has been hacked by Iran)—racing past apartment buildings where people are freezing to death in their beds, families huddled together under quilts, while, outside the darkened, besieged halls of government, men wearing fur hats and Kevlar vests (social media has been hacked by Russia), flashlights strapped to their […]
Continue readingUS Gov’t Will Slap Contractors With Civil Lawsuits For Hiding Breaches
from ars technica In a groundbreaking initiative announced by the Department of Justice this week, federal contractors will be sued if they fail to report a cyber attack or data breaches. The newly introduced “Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative” will leverage the existing False Claims Act to pursue contractors and grant recipients involved in what the DOJ calls “cybersecurity fraud.” Usually, the False Claims Act is used by the government to tackle civil lawsuits over false claims made in relation to federal funds and property connected with government programs. More here.
Continue readingThe White House Responded to the Chinese Hacks of the Microsoft Exchange Servers This Week. Is It Enough?
from Lawfare The Biden administration formally accused the Chinese government this week of carrying out the hacks of the Microsoft Exchange email server software, the details of which came to light in early March. In a joint statement with the European Union, NATO and several other U.S. allies, the White House placed blame for the hacks squarely on the shoulders of the contractors of China’s civilian intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), and accused the Chinese government of supporting “irresponsible and destabilizing behavior in cyberspace.” In conjunction with the White House’s statement, the Justice Department on July 19 […]
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