Collaborate Disseminate
On October 8th 2020, Donald Trump returned to the White House after spending several days at the Walter Reed Medical Center receiving a number of treatments for COVID-19. In a video message published on Twitter the President attributed his rapid recove… Continue reading What do we know about Trump’s experimental COVID-19 “cure”?
Facebook said it removed hundreds of fake accounts and pages on Thursday that had denigrated Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden while boosting GOP President Donald Trump. The company also said it had banned a marketing agency as part of the influence operation that it linked to prominent, youth-driven conservative organization Turning Point USA. The marketing firm, Rally Forge, also worked to undermine mail-in voting with comments on news stories posted to its platform, Facebook said. In all, the social media giant took down 200 Facebook accounts and 55 pages, as well as 76 Instagram accounts. The removal is a reminder that, with just weeks before Election Day, social media companies still are contending with the deliberate spread of misinformation from both foreign and domestic sources. Facebook in recent months has taken action against networks of white supremacists, and alleged Russian propagandists, among other networks. Other Silicon Valley firms, such as Twitter, also have taken […]
The post Facebook removes fake accounts it linked to Turning Point USA appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Facebook removes fake accounts it linked to Turning Point USA
The confirmation that US President Donald Trump has been infected by the Coronavirus, and had to spend time this weekend in hospital, has – understandably – made headlines around the world.
And there are plenty of people, on both sides of the politi… Continue reading Hackers disguise malware attack as new details on Donald Trump’s COVID-19 illness
The confirmation that US President Donald Trump has been infected by the Coronavirus, and had to spend time this weekend in hospital, has – understandably – made headlines around the world. And there are plenty of people, on both sides of the political… Continue reading Hackers disguise malware attack as new details on Donald Trump’s COVID-19 illness
Opportunistic hackers have seized on President Donald Trump’s illness from COVID-19 to fool email recipients into clicking on malware, researchers found, in what was a quick turnaround from the news that dominated the weekend and beyond. Proofpoint said it had detected an active, “medium volume” email campaign on Wednesday sent to several hundred U.S. and Canadian organizations. The messages are designed to bamboozle victims into downloading the BazaLoader backdoor, a kind of trojan commonly linked to the developers of the TrickBot hacking tool. Scammers frequently seize on major news events to try duping victims into providing access to their sensitive data. The apparent TrickBot gang email campaign comes less than a week after Proofpoint highlighted another that swiped Democratic National Committee website language in a bid to infect potential party volunteers. In this case, emails contain subject lines like “Recent materials pertaining to the president’s illness.” The body of the messages contain a hyperlink to an attached […]
The post Hackers exploit Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis to spread a different kind of virus appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Hackers exploit Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis to spread a different kind of virus
Intelligence from the FBI prompted Twitter to take down roughly 130 accounts that “appeared to originate in Iran,” and were trying to generate conflict during the presidential debate Tuesday, the social media company reported. In its announcement Wednesday, Twitter did not offer more details about the origin of the accounts or the extent of the FBI’s tip, but said it would publish the results of its full investigation later. The takedowns are the latest in a series of announcements from U.S. social media giants about their efforts to block foreign information operations and other inauthentic behavior ahead of the 2020 elections. Russia, China and Iran are considered to be the primary sources of such activity, each with its own distinct set of interests. Federal officials have said Iran generally seeks to increase divisions in the U.S. electorate. An operation that spread racist disinformation about coronavirus vaccine tests during the summer resembled the behavior of an Iran-linked group that security researchers called Endless Mayfly. Twitter’s security […]
The post Twitter says FBI tip prompted takedown of 130 fake accounts during debate appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Twitter says FBI tip prompted takedown of 130 fake accounts during debate
For the second time in a week, U.S. national security agencies have publicly reassured voters that election systems are being guarded from hacking and that the integrity of the vote is intact. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency “have not identified any threats, to date, capable of preventing Americans from voting or changing vote tallies for the 2020 elections,” the agencies said in a statement published Thursday. “[A]ttempts by cyber actors to compromise election infrastructure could slow but not prevent voting,” the agencies said, adding that any threats to date have “remained localized and were blocked, minimal or easily mitigated.” The announcement follows an advisory from the agencies on Tuesday warning that foreign actors could seize on delays in the reporting of election results to spread disinformation aimed at undermining confidence in the vote. The statements show how federal agencies, which have worked […]
The post Election cyberthreats have been ‘blocked, minimal or easily mitigated,’ federal agencies remind voters appeared first on CyberScoop.
According to Dutch magazine, three ethical hackers were able to determine Donald Trump’s Twitter password while he was running his US Presidential campaign.
A password that had been exposed years before following the notorious LinkedIn hack. Continue reading “Yourefired” was Donald Trump’s Twitter password, claim hackers
Just months before the U.S. presidential election, hackers from Russia, China and Iran are ramping up phishing and malware attacks against campaign staffers. Continue reading Microsoft Warns of Cyberattacks on Trump, Biden Election Campaigns
Hackers linked with the Chinese government tried to breach associates of the Joe Biden campaign, while hackers with reported connections to the Iranian government targeted President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, Microsoft warned Thursday. In addition, the same Russian military hackers that interfered in the 2016 election targeted a range of political and policy consultants in the U.S. and Europe, the software giant said. The hacking attempts against the Biden and Trump campaigns were unsuccessful, Microsoft said, but they offered another example of foreign espionage efforts weeks before the presidential election. “We have directly notified those who were targeted or compromised so they can take action to protect themselves,” Tom Burt, a Microsoft corporate vice president, wrote in a blog post. “The activity we are announcing today makes clear that foreign activity groups have stepped up their efforts targeting the 2020 election as had been anticipated, and is consistent with what the U.S. government and others […]
The post State-backed hackers targeted Biden and Trump campaign associates, Microsoft says appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading State-backed hackers targeted Biden and Trump campaign associates, Microsoft says