Category Archives: Joe Biden

Biden’s DHS pick was a ‘quick study’ of cybersecurity issues as the department’s deputy

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Alejandro Mayorkas, President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to run the Department of Homeland Security, gained an appreciation for how cyberthreats factor into national security challenges when he was deputy of the department from 2013 to 2016, former U.S. officials who know Mayorkas told CyberScoop. As DHS’s No. 2, the Cuban-American lawyer took a close interest in the department’s work on cyberthreat-sharing with the private sector, and was involved in negotiations with China over a 2015 agreement forbidding intellectual property theft. Mayorkas also witnessed the U.S. response to major state-sponsored hacking operations, from China’s alleged breach of the Office of Personnel Management to Russia’s probing of election infrastructure in 2016. Mayorkas is now poised to be a central figure in how the incoming Biden administration responds to such threats. “He clearly understood [cybersecurity] issues and why they were important and was a good advocate for DHS’s part in that,” said Christopher Painter, […]

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Biden transition efforts on cybersecurity uncertain as Trump administration throws up obstacles

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Former Department of Homeland Security chiefs cautioned Tuesday that President Donald Trump is endangering national security by blocking the transition to Joe Biden’s presidency, as the standoff stretched days after news organizations declared Biden the victor. “At this period of heightened risk for our nation, we do not have a single day to spare to begin the transition,” said the four former DHS secretaries Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, Janet Napolitano and Jeh Johnson. “For the good of the nation, we must start now.” Biden nonetheless plowed ahead with his plans to take over the executive branch, announcing agency review teams sprinkled with former U.S. government cybersecurity officials. But the Trump administration is so far making it difficult, and the dispute potentially stands to hamper cybersecurity on multiple fronts. One of those fronts: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) indicated that it would not work with the Biden transition until after […]

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How the pandemic helped election officials prepare for a flood of misinformation

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As Americans await the results of a heated presidential contest, election officials are in the spotlight in a country on edge. They are trying to sift through a fog of domestic misinformation, and their methodical process for counting and verifying ballots is belying demands to hurry up, or stop. Now, security experts say months of extraordinary preparation during the coronavirus are paying off. After months of explaining how elections would work during a pandemic, state and local officials are projecting confidence to the public by being open about their work. Election officials have “transformed some of the challenges associated with COVID into opportunities to increase transparency and election administration education,” said Liz Howard, senior counsel at the Democracy Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. “Before the election, when many election officials received calls and questions from voters about their absentee ballot security measures, many offered to provide tours of their offices to the […]

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Last-minute court rulings on election go against GOP, voting restrictions

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A federal judge on Monday rejected a Texas GOP bid to throw out approximately 127,000 ballots in largely Democratic Harris County, saying the Republicans failed to demonstrate that they were harmed by the votes cast at extra drive-through locations. It was one of two major election cases to see action on Monday. In both cases, courts sided against conservative challenges over voting in Democrat-friendly jurisdictions. But it might only foreshadow more legal challenges ahead, after the election. In Texas, GOP activist Steven Hotze brought the case alongside Harris County Republicans state Rep. Steve Toth, congressional candidate Wendell Champion and judicial candidate Sharon Hemphill. They contended the extra 10 drive-through stations violated state election law, in an argument that centered on the definition of curbside voting. The clerk for Harris County, Houston’s home, rebutted the conservatives’ argument on several fronts. but the issue of whether they had standing to sue apparently caught the attention of U.S. District Judge Hanen. […]

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Wisconsin Republicans say last minute hack cost party $2 million meant to reelect Trump

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Less than a week before Election Day in a vital swing state, Wisconsin Republicans said on Thursday that hackers made off with $2.3 million devoted to reelecting President Donald Trump. The Republican Party of Wisconsin said it first detected the attack on Oct. 22, then notified the FBI the following day about doctored invoices in the names of its vendors. “Cybercriminals, using a sophisticated phishing attack, stole funds intended for the re-election of President Trump, altered invoices and committed wire fraud,” the party’s chairman, Andrew Hitt, said in a statement. “These criminals exhibited a level of familiarity with state party operations at the end of the campaign to commit this crime.” It’s common for hacking victims to claim they were the victims of “sophisticated” attacks, whether the attacks were rudimentary or not. Hitt and a party spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions seeking further details, including any evidence the […]

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Cybercriminals Step Up Their Game Ahead of U.S. Elections

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Ahead of the November U.S. elections, cybercriminals are stepping up their offensive in both attacks against security infrastructure and disinformation campaigns – but this time, social media giants, the government and citizens are more prepared. Continue reading Cybercriminals Step Up Their Game Ahead of U.S. Elections→

Biden Campaign Staffers Targeted in Cyberattack Leveraging Anti-Virus Lure, Dropbox Ploy

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Google’s Threat Analysis Group sheds more light on targeted credential phishing and malware attacks on the staff of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. Continue reading Biden Campaign Staffers Targeted in Cyberattack Leveraging Anti-Virus Lure, Dropbox Ploy→

Google offers details on Chinese hacking group that targeted Biden campaign

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Google on Friday offered new details on tactics used by alleged Chinese government-linked hackers who previously targeted Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign, while warning that multiple state-linked hacking groups continue to show an interest in the U.S. election. The Chinese state-linked group, known as APT31, has been using malicious code hosted on the open-source platform GitHub to upload and download files on networks in targeted attacks, Google said in a blog post. The use of legitimate services, including Dropbox, have made the attacks more difficult to detect. The tech giant did not specify which organizations or industries were targeted in the activity, or even if it affected political campaigns. Google did say it shares its election-related findings with the FBI and political campaigns to help protect them from the threat. “Overall, we’ve seen increased attention on the threats posed by [advanced persistent threats] in the context of the U.S. election,” […]

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Twitter updates hacked materials policy following blow-up over New York Post story

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Twitter said it would modify its policy on hacked materials amid a controversy about a disputed news article about Democratic presidential nominee, clarifying it would only remove that kind of content if “directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them.” Additionally, Twitter pledged not to block related links from being shared and instead label tweets, said Vijaya Gadde, the company’s global lead for legal, policy, and trust and safety. Twitter’s late Thursday move came after outrage from conservatives over its handling of a dicey New York Post story about Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Twitter originally said it blocked links to the Post story based on its hacked materials policy. It never said how it came to the conclusion that anything was hacked in connection with the article. The article cites emails that were saved on a laptop that purportedly had been left in a computer repair shop. Both […]

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