Category Archives: Mark Warner

Senator hammers Facebook, Instagram over COVID-19 misinformation

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One day after a House panel grilled social media executives about misinformation on their platforms, a top senator blasted Facebook for its “continued amplification of harmful” posts about COVID-19, especially via Facebook-owned Instagram. Senate Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday, saying the company needed to do more to eradicate misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine than promising action. “Facebook’s enforcement of its own policies is consistently and demonstrably insufficient, a trend we have seen in other areas where Facebook has pledged to address misuse of its products or instances of its products amplifying harmful content,” Warner said in the letter. Warner juxtaposed Facebook’s February update of its policies on medical misinformation with the fact that on the day it announced them, some of the top search results for “COVID vaccine” on Instagram lead to anti-vaccine accounts. In particular, Warner said he was disturbed by a […]

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Biden signs executive order demanding supply chain security review

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President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday directing federal agencies to conduct a review of supply chain security risks in industries including information technology. While a significant goal of the order is to address shortages of a wide assortment of critical imported components such as electric batteries and pharmaceuticals, it does include a mandated review of the information and communications technology sector. A prominent justification for the review is a desire to rely less on semiconductors manufactured overseas. Biden, at a news conference to herald his signing of the executive order, said “we need to make sure these supply chains are secure and reliable.” It’s an issue, he said, “of both concern for economic security as well as our national security.” Espionage remains a significant concern, as well, after hackers leveraged access in a federal contractor to gather sensitive from throughout the U.S. government. The supply chain danger […]

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Senate hearing on SolarWinds hack lays bare US shortcomings, remaining mysteries

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A host of federal government policy failures contributed to the rippling damage of the SolarWinds hack, leaders of cyber firms told a Senate panel on Tuesday, with even lawmakers saying Congress must do more to prevent a repeat. More than two months after the hack became public, the wide-ranging Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing committee demonstrated that the U.S. government, the private sector and digital incident responders still are wrestling with the ramifications of an suspected Russian espionage campaign that leveraged the federal contractor SolarWinds. A number of big questions remain: SolarWinds still hasn’t determined how the hackers originally got into its systems, nobody has fully settled debates on whether the incident amount to espionage, or something worse, and suspicions abound that more victims remain unrevealed. “It has become clear that there is much more to learn about this incident, its causes, its scope and scale, and where we […]

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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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As FireEye grapples with breach investigation, questions remain

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FireEye’s announcement this week that hackers breached its systems has sent shockwaves through the cybersecurity community, raising new questions about how one of the most influential security firms in the U.S. grappled with an apparently state-sponsored attack. It also has triggered policy discussions about whether the U.S. government should do more to protect cyber industry titans like FireEye, one of the top cybersecurity firms in the world with customers that counts Fortune 500 companies among its clients. The hack adds FireEye to the list of cybersecurity companies that have experienced their own breaches, a roster stretching back to at least the beginning of the last decade. “This news has rocked the cybersecurity industry to our core, unlike anything since the RSA hack” from 2011, said Tom Bossert, president of Trinity Cyber and the former homeland security adviser to President Donald Trump. “It’s a pretty big deal.” FireEye revealed on Tuesday […]

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After years of work, Congress passes ‘internet of things’ cybersecurity bill — and it’s kind of a big deal

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Congress last week did something that it rarely does: It passed a meaningful cybersecurity bill. The legislation is aimed at enhancing the safeguards of internet-connected devices — also known as the internet of things (IoT) — such as smart sensors that monitor water quality or control ships in waterway locks. The bill is also a major step toward the federal government encouraging vulnerability disclosure policies that implement programs for organizations to work with security researchers to fix software flaws. “It is arguably the most significant U.S. IoT-specific cybersecurity law to date, as well as the most significant law promoting coordinated vulnerability disclosure in the private sector to date,” said Harley Geiger, director of public policy at Rapid7, a cybersecurity company. All it took to get across the finish line was more than three years of bipartisan work, encroaching state and foreign government IoT rules, a ticking legislative clock, goodwill toward […]

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Lawmakers back CISA chief Krebs after report that he expects to be fired

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Multiple Democratic U.S. lawmakers on Thursday reacted with concern to a media report that a senior Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity official has told associates that he expects to be fired by the White House. Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, were among those who hailed the work of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Director Chris Krebs, who has been at the forefront of federal agencies’ efforts to protect the 2020 election from hacking and disinformation. “It would not be a surprise [but] would disappoint me profoundly if he were to be fired,” Langevin, who is co-founder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, said in an interview. “I think Chris Krebs has served in his role as director of CISA with great professionalism, with passion, in a nonpartisan way. He’s someone who is respected on both sides of the aisle.” Krebs, […]

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Why the US was so fast to blame Iran for voter intimidation emails in Florida

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By trying to quickly resolve concerns about an apparent Iranian influence operation, and bolster Americans’ confidence the country’s electoral process, U.S. officials have sparked an entirely new set of questions: Why were they able to connect Iran to the attack so quickly, and how? During a briefing announced to reporters 10 minutes before it began Wednesday, John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, said the U.S. government had determined Iran was behind an email campaign meant to intimidate American voters. Neither Ratcliffe nor FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was also at the briefing, provided any technical evidence to support the allegation that the emails, purported to be sent by the Proud Boys as threats to Democratic voters in Florida to vote for President Donald Trump, in fact were sent by Iranian attackers. The disclosure came quickly after Motherboard on Tuesday reported on a surge of suspicious emails that seemed to use technical means to try to hide their […]

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Trump administration urged to sanction Russian individuals and groups for election meddling

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A group of Democratic senators is urging the U.S. Treasury Department to impose sanctions on those involved in efforts to interfere in the 2020 elections so far, including those from Russia. “We write to urge you immediately to impose sanctions on individuals, entities and governmental actors seeking to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections,” the 11 lawmakers, including Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, wrote in a letter Thursday to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Congress mandated a broad range of sanctions tools, and it is long past time for the administration to send a direct message to President Putin: the U.S. will respond immediately and forcefully to continuing election interference by the government of the Russian Federation and its surrogates, to punish, deter and substantially increase the economic and political costs of such interference.” The U.S. intelligence community has assessed Russia is currently working to “publicly denigrate” Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, according to a statement the Office […]

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Trump administration urged to sanction Russian individuals and groups for election meddling

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A group of Democratic senators is urging the U.S. Treasury Department to impose sanctions on those involved in efforts to interfere in the 2020 elections so far, including those from Russia. “We write to urge you immediately to impose sanctions on individuals, entities and governmental actors seeking to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections,” the 11 lawmakers, including Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, wrote in a letter Thursday to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Congress mandated a broad range of sanctions tools, and it is long past time for the administration to send a direct message to President Putin: the U.S. will respond immediately and forcefully to continuing election interference by the government of the Russian Federation and its surrogates, to punish, deter and substantially increase the economic and political costs of such interference.” The U.S. intelligence community has assessed Russia is currently working to “publicly denigrate” Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, according to a statement the Office […]

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