The FBI on Thursday searched the former office of the recently appointed federal chief information officer, Vivek Kundra, and charged two people with bribery, including Yusuf Acar, who heads information security for Washington, D.C., according to published reports. Acar is accused of bribery in awarding contracts to a company called Advanced Integrated Technologies. The firm's CEO, Sunshil Bansal, faces similar charges. Kundra, who last week was named the first-ever federal CIO, is not under investigation, but is on leave now, according to reports. — DK
Hamas spokesperson Hudhayfa Samir Abdallah al-Kahlut, also known as "Abu Ubaida," has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for his leadership of the group's cyber influence operations, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
TechCrunch reports that U.S. conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation was working on addressing a cyberattack against its systems last week, but investigation into whether any of its data was compromised is still underway.
Iranian state-backed threat operation MuddyWater, also known as TA450, Mango Sandstorm, and Boggy Sandstorm, has leveraged the novel DarkBeatC2 command-and-control infrastructure tool as part of its latest attack campaign, The Hacker News reports.