Category Archives: National Security Agency

NSA official: Foreign hackers have ‘pummeled’ U.S. by stealing IP

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Hackers sponsored by foreign governments have chipped away at the United States’ global economic advantage through a steady campaign of intellectual property theft, according to a top National Security Agency official. “It pains me to see the core of how we’ve defined ourselves over the last century” – in terms of innovation and intellectual property – “be continuously pummeled by external nation-state and non-nation-state-sponsored malicious cyber activity,” NSA Deputy Director George Barnes said Tuesday at the Intelligence and National Security Summit (INSA) in National Harbor, Md. Rather than one, devastating cyberattack, Barnes said there has been a “slow drop” of “continual theft of intellectual property from our industries.” Former NSA director Keith Alexander has repeatedly called the theft of U.S. intellectual property “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.” In a New York Times op-ed last year, Alexander and Dennis Blair, a former Director of National Intelligence, said such theft costs the U.S. $600 billion per year. […]

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NSA leaker Reality Winner gets 63 months in jail

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Reality Leigh Winner, the NSA contractor who leaked sensitive information to the Intercept last year, was sentenced to 63 months in prison last week along with three years of supervised release. Continue reading NSA leaker Reality Winner gets 63 months in jail→

Uber hires former NSA counsel Matt Olsen as top security executive

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After a tumultuous few months, Uber has a new chief trust and security officer: Matt Olsen, former co-founder off IronNet Cybersecurity and former general counsel of the National Security Agency. Uber CEO Dara Kohsrowshahi tweeted about the new hire after it was initially reported by the New York Times: Thrilled to have Matt Olsen on board as #Uber Chief Trust and Security Officer. He has more than earned the respect of our team at all levels while working with us over the last few months – https://t.co/Xxssp1Wa3r — dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) August 14, 2018 The search to fill Uber’s CSO position began last November when CSO Joe Sullivan and a slate of security executives left the company following a breach exposing data of 57 million customers at the company and accusations of a $100,000 coverup. Hiring Olsen is one of the most significant steps the ridesharing company has taken in […]

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Wyden asks federal agencies to ditch Adobe Flash

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Sen. Ron Wyden has called on federal agencies to stop using Adobe Flash, multimedia software that has consistently proven vulnerable over the years. Adobe will stop providing security updates for Flash in 2020, and Wyden, D-Ore., wants agencies charged with issuing federal cybersecurity guidance to get Flash off government systems before then. “At that point, Flash’s existing cybersecurity risks will only be compounded,” Wyden wrote in a July 25 letter to the heads of the Department of Homeland Security, National Security Agency, and National Institute of Standards and Technology. “The federal government has too often failed to promptly transition away from software that has been decommissioned.” The missive asks DHS, NIST, and the NSA to work together to produce a policy, effective within 60 days of its issuance, that bans the use of new Flash-based content on federal websites. For Wyden, agencies should not just refrain from deploying Flash but also […]

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NSA chief confirms he set up task force to counter Russian hackers

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The head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command confirmed over the weekend that he has set up a task force to counter Russian cyberthreats to the United States. Describing Russia as a “near-peer threat” in cyberspace that has “great capabilities,”Gen. Paul Nakasone said the task force is “in line with what the intelligence community has really been doing since post-2016/2017.” Speaking at a conference in Aspen, Colo., Nakasone didn’t elaborate on the activities or composition of the so-called “Russia Small Group,” but he did allude to the challenges of responding proportionally to foreign cyber operations that do not amount to acts of war. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a report in January 2017 that hackers linked with the Russian government meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by breaching multiple political organizations. “What we’ve seen our adversaries do over a period of years is the fact that they operate […]

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Former NSA contractor Reality Winner accepts guilty plea for leaking classified report

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Former National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner accepted a guilty plea agreement on Tuesday. For one count of espionage, Winner faces 63 months in prison and three years of supervised release. She originally faced ten years in prison. Final sentencing is yet to come. Winner, 26, is a former Air Force linguist who then worked as a contractor for the NSA in Georgia where she printed out classified material about the Russian government’s attempts at interference in U.S. elections and mailed the file to a reporter at The Intercept. The report was published on June 5, 2017. Winner had already been arrested two days earlier. “All of these actions I did willfully, meaning I did them of my own free will,” she said at Tuesday’s hearing. Winner’s lawyers and family pointed to the Espionage Act, a century-old piece of legislation routinely criticized as draconian, as the reason she pleaded guilty on Tuesday. “The […]

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The NSA now officially has a new chief

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Gen. Paul Nakasone, an experienced military leader with a unique background in cyber-operations and intelligence gathering, has been approved to take over the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command. The Senate confirmed Nakasone, who currently leads Army Cyber Command, by voice vote Tuesday morning. The promotion was expected for months and faced little opposition, but like most things in the Senate, it took some time to schedule. President Donald Trump nominated Nakasone for the job on Feb. 13. The previous NSA chief, Adm. Michael Rogers, is expected to officially retire soon after having served for four years at the top of the spy agency. During his tenure, the NSA attempted a massive reorganization effort known as “NSA21,” which combined certain components of the NSA’s defensive and offensive cyber teams for the first time. The current hierarchy, approved by Congress, prescribes that the leader of NSA is also simultaneously the head of U.S. Cyber Command, a still-nascent cyberwarfare […]

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Cybersecurity adviser Rob Joyce to leave White House, return to NSA

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Rob Joyce is planning to leave his post as White House cybersecurity coordinator and return to work at the National Security Agency, a U.S. official confirmed to CyberScoop on Monday. The news comes less than a week after Joyce’s boss, Thomas Bossert, resigned as White House homeland security adviser. Joyce has been filling Bossert’s role in an acting capacity. Bossert’s resignation was reportedly at the request of John Bolton, the newly appointed national security adviser. The departures of Joyce and Bossert leave big gaps in the Trump administration’s cybersecurity expertise. In his main role, Joyce has been involved in developing the framework surrounding how the U.S. responds to foreign cyberthreats. He participated in a call with reporters on Monday to issue an alert about Russian-backed hacking efforts targeting internet routers. Joyce has also been vocal to push for carveouts for security research in the impending European General Data Protection Regulation, which many say has a chilling effect on […]

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Enemies of U.S. continue cyberattacks without fear of reprisal, NSA director nominee says

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Russia and China continue to hack into U.S. companies and government agencies because they aren’t afraid of a potential response, senior U.S. officials say. The Army general expected to be confirmed as the next head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command told senators at a congressional hearing on Thursday that he doesn’t believe U.S. adversaries in cyberspace fear any repercussions for conducting hacking campaigns and cyber-espionage. Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone’s bleak assessment at at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing comes two days after the the same committee grilled the outgoing Adm. Mike Rogers, who Nakasone would replace, for indicating that the U.S. does not have offensive plans in motion to retaliate against cyberattacks. Responding to a line of questioning from Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska., who called the U.S. “the cyber punching bag of the world”, Nakasone said that countries known to target the U.S. in cyberattacks are not deterred […]

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