The FBI on Tuesday seized the website for DEER.IO, a Russian online platform used to conduct millions of dollars worth of cybercriminal transactions. The crackdown followed the March 7 arrest of alleged hacker/DEER.IO administrator Kirill Victorovich, who was taken into custody while in New York City. Active since October 2013, DEER.IO allows users to purchase…
An analysis of 11 presidential campaign websites performed last September and again in December found multiple instances of potentially risky third-party code, unwanted code execution and unauthorized data tracking. According to a new report from The Media Trust, 81 percent of executing code on these websites was not internally developed, but rather from external third-party…
A coronavirus-themed phishing campaign designed to infect victims with Raccoon information-stealing malware has reportedly been leveraging an open redirect vulnerability found on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ website, HHS.gov. As defined by Trustwave here, an open redirect occurs when a website’s “parameter values (the portion of URL after “?”) in an HTTP…
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has issued a public service announcement warning citizens to watch out for email-based fraud and malware schemes that take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic. Among the scams to look out for are emails purporting to contain helpful information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and…
In an effort to protect government sources and investigative methods, Justice Department prosecutors will drop charges against two Russian companies, Concord Management and Concord Consulting, indicted by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller for financing operations behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. The two companies, along with Internet Research Agency and a cadre of 13…
As the U.S. ramped up its response to the coronavirus pandemic, a cyberattack on the Health and Human Services (HHS) Sunday night aimed to slow down the agency’s computer systems. The initiative didn’t make much of an impact. “Luckily it slowed, but didn’t break or compromise anything,” said Marty Puranik, CEO of Atlantic.Net. The attack…
The House Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation that lawmakers touted as reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court (FISC) based on recent recommendations from the Justice Department inspector general (IG) and ends the government’s controversial domestic surveillance program, but which detractors say doesn’t represent reform at all. The bill, USA Freedom Reauthorization Act, bumps up congressional oversight…
A Manhattan federal jury yesterday failed to reach a verdict on any major charges leveled against Joshua Schulte, a former CIA software engineer from Lubbock, Texas, who was accused of stealing the agency’s hacking tools and delivering them to WikiLeaks for publication. Schulte, 31, was convicted on contempt of court and making false statements, but…
Facebook is facing a privacy lawsuit from Australia’s information commissioner over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. More than 300,000 Australians were affected by the when Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm used by both the Trump and Brexit Leave campaigns, violated Facebook policies by collecting the personal data from accounts of 87 million Americans and millions…
Recent U.S. efforts to ban the federal use of telecommunications equipment from Huawei Technologies and other Chinese companies are “malaligned” and “don’t make any sense to me,” said former Federal CIO Tony Scott in a podcast interview with SC Media. Scott, who served under former President Barack Obama and now operates as chairman of his own…
