Collaborate Disseminate
Trump refuses to believe all the evidence that Russia hacked the DNC, because he understands nothing about how digital forensics works. Continue reading Trump’s Stupid ‘Where Is the DNC Server?’ Conspiracy Theory, Explained
The Russian hacking team singled out in the Mueller probe’s latest indictment allegedly mined Bitcoins and banked on cryptocurrency’s pseudonymity to keep their identities hidden. Continue reading The Russians Who Allegedly Hacked the DNC Mined Bitcoin to Fund Their Operation
The Department of Justice has charged 12 Russian military intelligence officers for allegedly hacking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), an unnamed U.S. election technology company and individuals affiliated with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The conspirators were also allegedly behind two websites that facilitated the release of hacked material, named DCLeaks.com and Guccifer 2.0. The Guccifer 2.0 blog was also tied to a social media account that was known to directly communicate with journalists, political consultants and, according to the indictment, at least one U.S. lawmaker. Friday’s announcement comes three days before President Donald Trump sits down with Russian President Vladimir Putin for diplomatic talks on a range of issues, including the Syrian conflict, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the threat of future election meddling. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said at a press conference Friday that he had briefed Trump on the matter […]
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Hackers have launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against at least two municipal-level Democratic campaigns in 2018, according to two people familiar with the matter. These incidents, which occurred as the campaigns were focused on primary elections, were publicly unknown prior to this report. The malicious cyber-activity did not appear random, sources told CyberScoop. The attacks hit specific campaign websites at important moments, including during online fundraising periods. In another case, a website was hit while a candidate was receiving good publicity after a public speaking event. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss privately held information, say that news of the incidents has already reached the Democrats’ largest campaigning bodies, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Sources said they were told about the attacks by campaign officials and not cybersecurity experts, leaving a gap in their understanding of the events. Raffi Krikorian, the […]
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Continue reading Two Democratic campaigns hit with DDoS attacks in recent months
Staffers at the Democratic National Committee are getting better at spotting phishing emails, a skill that became a top priority after Russian-linked hackers breached the DNC during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, according to Chief Technology Officer Raffi Krikorian. Krikorian and his team have been challenging their colleagues to spot fake malicious emails. Since September of last year — primarily through a phishing simulation platform named Wombat — the DNC’s tech team has been targeting co-workers as part of a broad effort to evaluate internal cybersecurity risks. Staffers are graded on their ability to spot, report and avoid emails that in a real-world scenario might carry malware. The ongoing exercise is helping Krikorian and DNC Chief Information Security Officer Bob Lord learn how often any person in the organization is likely to click a suspicious email attachment. “People have such PTSD about what happened in 2016 that there’s a real desire to improve [security] here,” Krikorian […]
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Continue reading DNC pushes employees, campaigns to embrace email security habits ahead of midterms
The FBI is catching heat from Congress again. In a report released Friday by the House Intelligence Committee about their own investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, lawmakers argued that the FBI didn’t do enough to notify victims that were targeted by Russian cyberattacks. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s notification to numerous Russian hacking victims was largely inadequate,” the committee wrote. “The Committee is also concerned that many, perhaps even a majority, of Russia’s known victims were never contacted by the FBI.” Much of the committee’s notes on this subject are redacted, but the panel appears to base its assessment at least partially on reporting from the Associate Press in November 2017. The AP reported that the FBI was aware of Russian hacking group Fancy Bear attempting to break into scores of U.S. officials’ Gmail accounts, but only notified a small fraction. The committee also highlighted the fact that Hillary Clinton campaign staffer […]
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Continue reading Intel Committee blasts FBI for not notifying Russian hacking victims
The Republican party has apparently created a series of domains to discredit and attack former FBI director James Comey. Meanwhile, Democratic party sympathizers appear to have created similar domains to counter the Republicans’ anti-Comey campaign. Continue reading Evidence Suggests the GOP Bought at Least 17 Anti-James Comey Domains
President Donald Trump’s newly appointed national security adviser has a history of denying that Russian hackers breached the Democratic National Committee in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. “It’s not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation,” John Bolton said on Fox News in December 2016. “The question that has to be asked is, why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary [Clinton]’s server, but their dumb intelligence services against the election?” That opinion runs counter to what most cybersecurity experts, the U.S. intelligence community and even current Trump administration officials say. In fact, the only known organization that’s entertained this same assertion is The Nation, a typically left-leaning liberal news outlet, which was subsequently mocked for its story that suggested as much. The latter half of […]
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So-called “lone hacker” was in fact an officer with Russia’s military intelligence division. Forgetting to enable his VPN on one single occasion helped investigators identify his real location.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
Continue reading Guccifer 2.0’s schoolboy error reveals he’s hacking from Moscow
The Democratic National Committee has named Bob Lord as its new chief security officer, hiring the former Yahoo CISO to lead the committee’s cybersecurity operations heading into the 2018 midterm elections. The hire was announced Thursday through a statement released by the DNC. The committee mentions that Lord will work with the organization’s own internal security team as well as in the field to support state parties, including efforts to update their “information security strategies” and improve practices to “change the economics” for attackers. “I’m confident Bob’s skills and hard work will help protect us against the sort of cyberattacks and intrusions that are unfortunately all too common in today’s age,” DNC Chair Tom Perez said in a release. “Defense is an essential part of any game plan, and I couldn’t be happier with Bob holding the line for the DNC.” The DNC has never employed a CSO before. But the […]
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