Category Archives: trump administration

NYSE to remove 3 Chinese telecoms from market

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The New York Stock Exchange said Wednesday it will delist several Chinese telecommunications firms that allegedly worked with the Chinese military, the reversal of a previous decision. The stock exchange had first said last week it would remove China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile in order to comply with a Trump administration executive order. The order, issued in November, aimed to block Chinese companies from using U.S. capital to help advance Chinese military and intelligence goals. The effect is to bar the companies from trading on the exchange. The NYSE initially tried to backpedal on Monday after “further consultation with relevant regulatory authorities.” The exchange at the time said it would not delist the firms, causing widespread confusion. The decision on Wednesday to delist the firms, after all, came after the Treasury Department‘s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued guidance Tuesday that would block people in the U.S. from conducting […]

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More Chinese apps attract a ban from a presidential administration on the way out

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President Donald Trump’s latest executive order against Chinese tech companies might not ever take effect, but at a minimum it will force some decisions by the incoming presidential administration. The order bans U.S. transactions with several mobile apps, including Alipay and WeChat Pay, in the interest of protecting the security of U.S. users. The Trump administration made similar moves against TikTok last year, and those efforts are still tied up in court. “The United States has assessed that a number of Chinese connected software applications automatically capture vast swaths of information from millions of users in the United States, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information,” according to the executive order, which Trump issued Tuesday night. As with TikTok, the assumption is that such data could be readily available to the Chinese government. The catch is that the order takes effect in 45 days — well after the inauguration of President-elect […]

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Biden takes aim at Trump, Russia over SolarWinds breach

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President-elect Joe Biden pressured Donald Trump on Tuesday to name the hackers behind the SolarWinds breach, saying that the evidence suggests Russia is responsible. Biden also faulted the incumbent president for his handling of the nation’s digital defenses and vowed to do “all that needs to be done” to get to the bottom of the sweeping cyber espionage campaign, then punish the culprits. “It is a grave risk and it continues. I see no evidence that it’s under control,” Biden said during a speech in Wilmington, Delaware. “The Defense Department won’t even brief us on many things. So I know of nothing that suggests it’s under control. This president hasn’t even identified who is responsible yet.” Biden’s remarks amounted to his most extensive statement on cybersecurity since winning office. They came shortly after Trump downplayed the severity of the backdoor inserted into SolarWinds software that has afflicted both Cabinet departments […]

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White House quietly activates cyber emergency response

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In the wake of the SolarWinds breach, the National Security Council has activated an emergency cybersecurity process that is intended to help the government plan its response and recovery efforts, according to White House officials and other sources. The activation of the process is a sign of just how seriously the Trump administration is taking the foreign espionage operation, former NSC officials told CyberScoop. The process, which is rooted in a presidential directive issued during the Obama administration known as PPD-41, establishes a Cyber Unified Coordination Group (UCG) that is intended to help the U.S. government coordinate multiple agencies’ responses to the significant hacking incident. The UCG is generally led by the Department of Justice — through the FBI and the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force — as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security. “This cyberattack is the exact type […]

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National security officials brief Biden team on SolarWinds hacking campaign

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U.S. national security officials have briefed the transition team for President-elect Joe Biden and Capitol Hill aides on the consequences of a suspected government-backed hacking campaign affecting multiple federal agencies, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Trump administration officials held multiple briefings on the topic for Biden aides on Monday, and there is a classified briefing slated for Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the briefings. Among the agencies briefing Biden staff on Monday was the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a CISA official said. The hacking campaign, which the Washington Post reported as being tied to Russia, forced an emergency meeting of the White House National Security Council and prompted some lawmakers to call for new approaches to defending U.S. companies from malicious cyber activity. Responding to the apparent cyber-espionage effort could be one of the first big tests of Biden’s cybersecurity […]

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Twitter, WhatsApp users in Cuba report disruptions amid free speech protests

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Social media users in Cuba experienced interruptions to Twitter and WhatsApp service over the weekend amid protests against government restrictions on free expression, according to a digital rights group and media outlets that track Cuba. “Twitter, WhatsApp, and, at certain moments YouTube and other Facebook servers, were intermittently unavailable” from Nov. 27 to Nov. 30 through Cuba’s state-owned telecommunications provider, according to NetBlocks, a digital rights group that tracks internet activity. Some Cubans reported that Twitter and WhatsApp only functioned properly if they used virtual private network (VPN) software to mask their location. The reported service issues coincided with protests by Cuban musicians, writers and activists against the communist government’s jailing of their colleagues. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has denounced the collective of artists, known as the San Isidro Movement, as an “imperialist reality show” backed by the United States. The Cuban government has nonetheless taken the rare step of meeting with the […]

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UK bill proposes stiff fines for companies that violate Huawei ban

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The U.K. government is proposing big penalties for companies that fail to comply with telecommunications security requirements aimed at keeping technology from Huawei out of the country’s new high-speed networks. Legislation proposed Tuesday by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government would levy fines of as much as 100,000 pounds ($134,000) per day if companies don’t meet deadlines for new security requirements. The bill essentially would codify a decision by Johnson this summer to ban Huawei from the U.K.’s 5G and fiber optics networks because of security concerns. The U.S. had pressured Britain to block Huawei over its alleged ties to the Chinese state. The Trump administration has continued to expand restrictions on the company as the U.S. and China continue to battle over trade rules, internet policy and other tech issues. Huawei has denied it spies on customers at the behest of the Chinese government. The legislation clarifies what is expected […]

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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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GAO criticizes rollout of two key Trump administration cyber initiatives

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In September 2018, the White House announced a new federal cybersecurity strategy to make critical infrastructure more resilient to hacking, shore up supply chains and “identify, counter, disrupt, degrade and deter behavior in cyberspace.” The ambitious document, which the White House described as the United States’ “first fully articulated cyber strategy” in 15 years, aimed to reduce the occurrence of damaging cyberattacks on U.S. interests. Two years later, a review of the strategy by the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional agency, has found key gaps in the way the White House is trying to execute that plan. In the face of persistent cyber-threats from foreign powers, the Trump administration’s effort to mobilize resources to fix important U.S. security weaknesses risks coming up short without a better plan to execute the strategy, GAO said in a report published Tuesday. The National Security Council’s implementation plan for the strategy does not include […]

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TikTok, WeChat survive in US app stores — one with a deal, the other with a judge’s help

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China-based TikTok and WeChat remained in U.S. app stores on Monday, surviving a Trump administration ban that was supposed to take effect at the end of the weekend. TikTok’s reprieve came on Saturday, when President Trump announced that its parent company, ByteDance, would break off the social media app’s U.S. business into a new firm, TikTok Global, with 20 percent ownership by Oracle and Walmart. The good news for users of WeChat, a globally popular messaging app, arrived Sunday when a federal judge in California blocked the ban. Both apps were subject to Commerce Department rules that would have blocked U.S. users from downloading fresh installs or updates, although existing users would have been able to keep current versions on their phones. The announcement said the apps “threaten the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the U.S.” given their direct windows into the private activities of Americans. The TikTok ban has […]

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