Category Archives: Donald Trump

Biden orders US intelligence review of SolarWinds hack

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President Joe Biden has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to provide him with an assessment of a suspected Russian hacking operation that breached multiple U.S. federal agencies and exposed glaring weaknesses in U.S. cyber-defenses, the White House said Thursday. The move highlights how responding to the sophisticated spying operation, which has exploited software made by federal contractor SolarWinds, will shape the early days of Biden’s administration. It was not immediately clear what the intelligence review would entail, but Biden has vowed to get a full understanding of the computer intrusions and their impact. “Even as we work with Russia to advance U.S. interests, so, too, we work to hold Russia to account for its reckless and adversarial actions,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. Moscow has denied involvement in the hacking campaign. Biden has also tasked intelligence agencies with reviewing the extent of Russian interference in the 2020 election, […]

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Michael Sulmeyer, who held cyber posts under Trump and Obama, gets Biden White House gig

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Michael Sulmeyer, a senior adviser to National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command leader Gen. Paul Nakasone, will take the position of senior director for cyber in the Biden White House. Sulmeyer’s selection came with no formal announcement. Instead, the transition website posted his position Monday evening. Sulmeyer is a cybersecurity veteran with broad experience, one of many to join the Biden administration. He’s also one of several whose tenures have included roles in the Trump administration. Beyond serving under Nakasone, he also served in the Obama administration at the Defense Department, where he was director for plans and operations for cyber policy. Between roles in the Trump and Obama administrations, he was director of the Belfer Center’s Cyber Security Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. He also wrote extensively for Lawfare on subjects like election security, federal cybersecurity strategy and DOD-related cybersecurity issues. In the past, the National Security […]

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Russia, Iran and China exploit Capitol Hill riot to push information operations, US intel concludes

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As America reels from the deadly Capitol Hill insurrection, Russia, Iran and China are using their state media mouthpieces to exploit U.S. divisions and further their interests ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration, according to a new U.S. intelligence analysis obtained by CyberScoop. The Jan. 14 intelligence memo produced by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security shows how U.S. adversaries wasted no time in amplifying scenes from the pro-Trump mob’s siege of the Capitol building. Russian state media has harped on the Jan. 6 riot’s “violent and chaotic nature,” while focusing on the second impeachment of President Donald Trump, according to the memo. One Russian “proxy” suggested that “Antifa,” a loose collection of left-wing activists, was responsible for the storming of the Capitol, the intelligence memo said. Some Republican lawmakers also have mentioned that baseless conspiracy theory. Iranian state media has zeroed in on calls for Trump’s removal from office […]

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YouTube joins Silicon Valley backlash against Trump content

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Despite the widespread backlash against President Donald Trump by tech companies since the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, one big platform hadn’t officially taken decisive action against him until Tuesday night. YouTube announced in a Twitter thread that it was blocking Trump from uploading new content for at least a week for violating its policies. In practice, it’s similar to Facebook’s move last week. Trump’s personal page is still fully available on YouTube, but the president can’t post anything new, for now. Twitter has permanently banned the president. YouTube’s announcement also spoke directly to concerns that major social media platforms have served as organizing points for the extremists, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists who raided the Capitol last week and are expected to try similar attacks in Washington and elsewhere again. The ban by the Google-owned video platform would last, at a minimum, to the eve of Joe […]

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Twitter purges QAnon accounts; Facebook targets ‘Stop the Steal’

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The latest moves by Twitter and Facebook against misinformation look a lot like efforts from 2020. One platform suspended tens of thousands of accounts that were amplifying the QAnon conspiracy theory, and another is removing content suggesting that the election was rigged. Twitter said Tuesday it removed more than 70,000 accounts for “sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale,” one day after Facebook said it is targeting the phrase “stop the steal” — a favorite hashtag of President Donald Trump’s supporters — in the interest of stopping “misinformation and content that could incite further violence.” Both moves come as the social media giants have blocked Trump in the aftermath of the riot by right-wing extremists at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, which occurred as Congress was preparing to certify Joe Biden’s victory over the incumbent president in November’s elections. Twitter, Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies say incitements to violence […]

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Donald Trump’s presidency ended today, claims altered US State Department website

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The biographies of outgoing US President Donald Trump and his Vice President Mike Pence were mysteriously changed on the official US State Department website at some point on Monday.

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Security researchers download, leak 70TB of sensitive Parler data

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By Waqas
Parler has been booted off by Amazon from its AWS cloud platform while Apple and Google have already suspended its apps from their app stores.
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Amazon boots Parler from web hosting service over violent content

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Parler, a social media platform favored by pro-Trump groups, was completely offline Monday morning after Amazon knocked the company from its web hosting services Sunday night. The move by Amazon Web Services (AWS) leaves Parler without a digital home — a blow potentially even more serious than moves by Google and Apple to suspend it from their app stores. All three technology giants took action after saying Parler had violated their terms of service for allowing posts that could contribute to violence. The existential problems for Parler come as federal law enforcement continues to make arrests related to the violent Jan. 6 intrusion of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters. Posts on the social media platform were part of the long trail of digital evidence available to investigators. The mob included white supremacists and proponents of the QAnon conspiracy movement. Amazon’s decision was first reported by BuzzFeed News, which cited […]

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Sen. Warner accuses White House of weakening statement attributing SolarWinds hack to Russia

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An influential Senate Democrat who will soon chair the intelligence committee on Thursday accused the White House of “water[ing] down” the U.S. government’s public statement linking a hacking campaign to Russia, and suggested more high-profile corporations had been breached. “We know who it was,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said in reference to the espionage campaign in which attackers leveraged the software built by federal contractor SolarWinds to compromise multiple federal agencies. “And this White House has again water-downed the attribution statements that should have been made in one more outrageous effort to constantly underestimate and underreport on Russian activity.” He spoke at an event held by the Aspen Institute. U.S. intelligence and national security agencies on Tuesday said the hacking campaign was “likely Russian in origin,” calling it “a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate.” A person familiar with internal U.S. government deliberations on […]

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Capitol Hill riot exposes Congress’s operational and cybersecurity frailties

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The violent pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday exposed not only glaring weaknesses in the legislative body’s physical security but also its digital and operational security, according to experts. The intruders were able to roam the halls of Congress and at certain points had unfettered access to some lawmakers’ offices and computers. One rioter left a note in front of a computer in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office saying, “We will not back down.” Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said a laptop was stolen from his office. There is no public evidence that devices were tampered with. But some experts are hoping that, in addition to a likely investigation into the failures of physical security measures, lawmakers take the opportunity to review their own digital security practices, which have long been a concern. The insurrectionists who breached the Capitol were unsophisticated opportunists who were more interested in taking selfies […]

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