Category Archives: Donald Trump

Facebook boots Roger Stone for relying on fake accounts to amplify WikiLeaks

Posted on by

Facebook says it’s removing the personal account and the Instagram page belonging to Roger Stone, the longtime associate of  President Donald Trump recently convicted of seven felonies, amid ongoing scrutiny over the company’s failure to enforce its own rules. In an announcement Wednesday, Facebook said it will remove the accounts as part of a larger action against the Proud Boys, a far right organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group. The network was most active between 2015 and 2017, Facebook said, and promoted WikiLeaks’ disclosure of the emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee in 2016. In one case in June 2016, one of the accounts advertised a link to an Infowars article about the release of the Democratic National Committee’s plan to combat Donald Trump’s candidacy. The effort consisted of 54 Facebook accounts, 50 pages and four Instagram accounts, including a number of […]

The post Facebook boots Roger Stone for relying on fake accounts to amplify WikiLeaks appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Facebook boots Roger Stone for relying on fake accounts to amplify WikiLeaks→

REvil gang threaten to auction celebrity data from Mariah Carey, Lebron James, MTV and more

Posted on by

The ransomware gang is threatening to auction celebrities’ legal documents stolen from the law firm it paralyzed in May. Continue reading REvil gang threaten to auction celebrity data from Mariah Carey, Lebron James, MTV and more→

Securing voter registration databases takes on added importance in pandemic, DHS official says

Posted on by

The expansion of voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic makes it all the more important that election officials secure voter registration databases from hacking, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official. The greater amount of absentee voting and mail-in ballots “shifts the risk towards voter registration data security,” Matt Masterson, senior adviser at DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said Wednesday during a virtual conference. People voting by mail generally won’t have access to the same provisional-balloting process that those voting in person can use if they’ve been left off of voter rolls due to an administrative error. That makes the integrity of voter registration data all the more important in the era of COVID-19, Masterson said. The novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 120,000 people in the U.S., has forced many states to postpone presidential primaries and ramp up voting-by-mail options. Forty-six states currently offer all of their voters some form […]

The post Securing voter registration databases takes on added importance in pandemic, DHS official says appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Securing voter registration databases takes on added importance in pandemic, DHS official says→

Trump, Biden Campaign Staffers Targeted By APT Phishing Emails

Posted on by

Google TAG researchers warn that APTs are targeting campaign staffers for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden with phishing emails. Continue reading Trump, Biden Campaign Staffers Targeted By APT Phishing Emails→

Google: Biden and Trump campaigns targeted by separate spearphishing campaigns

Posted on by

Hackers linked with China and Iran have been sending malicious spearphishing emails to staff on Joe Biden and President Donald Trump’s campaigns respectively, according to a researcher with Google’s Threat Analysis Group. Chinese government-linked hackers have been targeting Biden’s staffers, whereas Iranian government-linked hackers have been targeting Trump’s campaign, according to Shane Huntley, the Director of Google’s Threat Analysis Group. There is no evidence that the hacking attempts have resulted in compromises, Huntley said. This is just the latest warning from security researchers and the U.S. intelligence community that foreign government-backed hackers are interested in targeting various U.S. presidential campaigns during the 2020 election cycle, in what is turning out to be a tumultuous year for American citizens amid economic turmoil, the coronavirus pandemic, and mass protests about racism. “We have known from the beginning of our campaign that we would be subject to such attacks and we are prepared for […]

The post Google: Biden and Trump campaigns targeted by separate spearphishing campaigns appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Google: Biden and Trump campaigns targeted by separate spearphishing campaigns→

The governor’s office says the NSA isn’t involved in the response to Minnesota’s protests. But here’s how it could be.

Posted on by

The office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says the National Security Agency did not provide the state with signals intelligence as its law enforcement agencies responded to protests against the killing of George Floyd. For awhile this weekend, though, the governor stirred up some confusion about whether the intelligence agency could do so. “No NSA involvement,” a Walz spokesperson told CyberScoop. The Democratic governor was mistaken in suggesting Saturday during a press conference that the U.S. military had provided the state with signals intelligence collected by the NSA, the spokesperson said. CyberScoop could not independently verify the spokesman’s comment. The NSA deferred comment to the governor’s office. Generally speaking, the NSA, the Pentagon’s foreign signals intelligence agency, does not target U.S. citizens to collect electronic communications information. But there are specific times when it can. Walz’s comments — combined with speculation about how those legal circumstances might apply to the protests — were enough to fuel questions about the NSA’s involvement. Walz said Saturday that he had […]

The post The governor’s office says the NSA isn’t involved in the response to Minnesota’s protests. But here’s how it could be. appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading The governor’s office says the NSA isn’t involved in the response to Minnesota’s protests. But here’s how it could be.→

Hackers Threaten to Release Stolen Documents from Law Firm Implicating Donald Trump

Posted on by

The group that deployed REvil ransomware into the network of the Grubman Shire Meiselas& Sacks law firm just last week now threatens to release stolen information pertaining to President Donald Trump, if their demands are not met. A massive REvil r… Continue reading Hackers Threaten to Release Stolen Documents from Law Firm Implicating Donald Trump→

Citing hacking threats, Trump limits foreign-sourced equipment in U.S. electric sector

Posted on by

President Donald Trump on Friday issued an executive order barring federal agencies and companies under U.S. jurisdiction from installing foreign-owned equipment in the electric sector that might pose “an unacceptable risk to national security.” The sweeping directive authorizes Trump’s energy secretary, Dan Brouillette, to work with U.S. national security agencies and the energy industry to vet equipment before it gets installed, and to identify vulnerable gear already in place. It is the latest move by the administration to clamp down on foreign-sourced software and hardware, following an order last year covering U.S. companies’ procurement of telecommunications gear. The new executive order covers equipment procured and installed in the “bulk-power system” — or infrastructure used in electricity generation and transmission, and generally not distribution. “Foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities” in that system, including through “malicious cyber activities,” Trump said in the order. One of the more notable hacking operations to target the U.S. […]

The post Citing hacking threats, Trump limits foreign-sourced equipment in U.S. electric sector appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading Citing hacking threats, Trump limits foreign-sourced equipment in U.S. electric sector→

It’s hard for campaigns to be transparent without aiding attackers

Posted on by

Everyone knows what happened to John Podesta in 2016. Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager clicked on a phishing email, and as far as we know, it was the first time a cyberattack shaped a presidential election. This time around, the campaigns are more focused on recognizing and stopping phishing attacks. That’s good, because phishing has become way more sophisticated over the last four years, including the painstaking research smart attackers run. So if we were to see a repeat of 2016, where would hackers conduct their homework? They could look no further than the Federal Election Commission, whose website illustrates how tough it is to balance transparency and security. The bad guys are looking, too Check out the FEC’s campaign finance data repository. It enables anyone to see where campaigns are spending their money: They’re required to list individuals, vendors, and others they are paying to support their operations. The site […]

The post It’s hard for campaigns to be transparent without aiding attackers appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading It’s hard for campaigns to be transparent without aiding attackers→