Justice Department drops charges against government employee

Ashley CarmanMarch 12, 2015

The Justice Department has dropped an eight-count indictment against a federal employee who was accused of illegally downloading data from a restricted government database.

The department suggested that Xiafen Chen, a hydrologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), stole the documents on behalf of a Chinese government official, The Wall Street Journal reported. Her trial was set to start on Monday, but was dropped after a request from Chen's attorneys this week.

Chen was accused of meeting with a Chinese official in 2012 and handing over information on U.S. dams. However, her defense court filings indicated that those documents included only publicly available information.

The allegations came from a June 11, 2013 interview with the Justice Department, during which Chen denied downloading the information.

Following the case's dismissal, Chen plans to seek reinstatement to her job.

Ashley Carman

Threat Intelligence

Malicious PyPI, NPM packages facilitate data exfiltration

SC StaffSeptember 28, 2023

Forty-five malicious NPM and PyPI packages have been deployed by threat actors to facilitate extensive data theft operations as part of a campaign that commenced on Sept. 12, according to BleepingComputer.

Email security

State Department emails compromised in Microsoft breach

SC StaffSeptember 28, 2023

Sixty thousand emails from U.S. State Department accounts were noted by a staffer working for Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., to have been exfiltrated by Chinese threat actors during the widespread compromise of Microsoft email accounts that commenced in May, according to Reuters.

Threat Intelligence

Russian state hackers attempted to block Ukrainians from opening US bank accounts

Bradley BarthSeptember 28, 2023

Russian actors were behind a surge in an effort to block money transfers of Ukrainian war refugees, said Morgan Stanley’s Rachel Wilson at the InfoSec World 2023 conference.

Related Events

Get daily email updates

SC Media's daily must-read of the most current and pressing daily news