Collaborate Disseminate
A Black Hat 2023 panel discussed the ramifications of generative AI, and included the former Cyber Czar for the Obama administration. Continue reading Black Hat USA 2023 Panel: Used Correctly, Generative AI is a Boon for Cybersecurity
The former president said the U.S. and other democracies helped disinformation flourish by growing complacent.
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The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that the Obama administration’s response to Russian election interference during the 2016 presidential election campaign was largely hamstrung by partisan concerns and a difficulty understanding the true scope of Russian capabilities and intentions, according to a new bipartisan report issued Thursday. The report broadly addresses information-sharing issues, why a delay in definitive attribution to Russia took place and fears about undermining Americans’ trust in election processes. It’s the latest installment of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings from its probe into Russia’s efforts, and comes after two prior reports on election security and Russia’s information operations. Siloed understanding of cyber issues The administration was caught off-guard by the concept of Russian cyber-operations pivoting from espionage to more disruptive measures, the report found. “Witnesses interviewed by the committee consistently said that Russian cyber activity was a well-known issue within the administration, however hardly any administration officials had […]
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U.S. Cyber Command is shifting the way it measures success from solely military outcomes to how the command enables other government agencies to defend against foreign offensive cyber threats. Brig. Gen. Timothy Haugh, who is in charge of Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force, said on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council that success is “not necessarily [about] the department’s outcome,” but is instead about “how can we enable our international partners [and] our domestic partners in industry to be able to defend those things that are critical to our nation’s success.” Haugh said Cyber Command is doing its job right if agencies are taking their own actions: State Department issuing démarches, Department of Homeland Security releasing alerts, and Treasury Department announcing sanctions “based off of information that is derived from our operations.” In the past, Haugh said he believes that these outcomes may not have been considered as wins. […]
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The U.S. government is trying to more effectively deter cyberattacks by imposing clear consequences on nation-state-linked hackers, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Thursday, casting the Trump administration as tougher on the issue than the Obama administration. “This is one of those areas where deterrence has to be clear,” Nielsen said Thursday at a Capitol Hill security event. “We will no longer stand by while nation-states attack the government or our private sector entities.” “For so long, we’ve had these attacks, it’s taken us over a year to attribute it in some cases,” she said. “Then you attribute it, nothing happens.” Under both presidential administrations, the U.S. has clamped down on hackers linked with the Chinese, Russian, and Iranian governments through indictments and sanctions. In 2014, Obama’s Department of Justice brought the first U.S. charges of cyber-espionage against a nation-state with the indictment of five Chinese military officers. In March, Trump’s DOJ indicted nine Iranian […]
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The Obama Administration reportedly planted cyber weapons within Russian infrastructure in 2016 to use in response to potential threats made by the Kremlin, according to the Washington Post. Through collaboration with members of the NSA, CIA and U.S. Cyber Command, according to the Washington Post, Obama gave his signature to a covert cyber operation designed “to be triggered remotely as part of retaliatory cyber-strike in the face of Russian aggression, whether an attack on a power grid or interference in a future presidential race.” The cyber weapons were “the digital equivalent of bombs that could be detonated if the United States found itself in an escalating exchange with Moscow,” but the project, including the “time sensitive” weapons, were never fully completed under Obama and the option for potential retaliation now rests with President Donald Trump. The Obama administration publicly announced a set of sanctions in December 2016 aimed at cracking […]
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When U.S. officials realized last year that Russian intelligence services’ hacking into the IT systems of the Democratic National Committee was just one part of a full-featured information warfare operation, they faced a number of immediate problems, a former White House insider said Wednesday. James Clapper, who was director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama, said the first dilemma was well-understood: how to warn the American people about the Russian effort to meddle with the election without appearing to put a thumb on the scale. There was a second and much less well-understood problem, though: how to fight back. “We don’t really have a good way to respond” to the efforts like those that were designed to damage Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton, Clapper said at Gigamon’s Public Sector Cybersecurity Summit. The information warfare created fake news as well as the real thing — like the stories that came out of the documents dumped from the DNC hack. […]
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J. Michael Daniel, the career federal official who served as White House cybersecurity coordinator under President Barack Obama, will helm a nonprofit alliance founded by cybersecurity giants to better share information about cybercrime and other threats. The Cyber Threat Alliance announced the appointment in a press release Tuesday. The group also announced that it was […]
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Your daily round-up of what else is in the news Continue reading News in brief: porn database hacked; Obama call to Trump; MPs move on Snooper’s Charter
The Obama Administration recently restricted all offshore Arctic drilling till at least 2022, but some scientists think it should never happen. Continue reading These Scientists Say the US Should Ban Offshore Arctic Drilling Forever