Senators press Treasury to speak about breach, planned response to hackers

Two key Senate Democrats extensively questioned the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday about its reported data breach, a subject it has been less forthcoming about than the other federal agencies swept into the compromise of SolarWinds software. The senators, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Ron Wyden of Oregon, also want to know whether Treasury plans to sanction the attackers and if it has begun evaluating the overall damage to the economy of the cyber-espionage campaign, which could ripple through the private sector, too. The senators’ letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pushes the department not only to provide information about its own breach, but also to develop a broader response that includes punishments for the hackers responsible. Cybersecurity researchers have tied them to Russia. “These media reports suggest that these attacks were comprehensive and historic and bad actors may have had access to critical U.S. government networks for many months,” […]

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Senators Prod FCC to Act on SIM Swapping

Crooks have stolen tens of millions of dollars and other valuable commodities from thousands of consumers via “SIM swapping,” a particularly invasive form of fraud that involves tricking a target’s mobile carrier into transferring someone’s wireless service to a device they control. But the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the entity responsible for overseeing wireless industry practices, has so far remained largely silent on the matter. Now, a cadre of Senate lawmakers is demanding to know what, if anything, the agency might be doing to track and combat SIM swapping. Continue reading Senators Prod FCC to Act on SIM Swapping