The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) last year fielded 467,361 complaints related to cybercrime activity that collectively cost victims $3.5 billion in losses, according the agency’s just released 2019 Internet Crime Report. The 2019 complaint count represents a nearly 33 percent increase from the 2018 total of 351,937, and the $3.5 billion figure also…
Despite warnings from FBI Director Christopher Wray that Russia is actively interfering with the 2020 presidential election through information warfare, Senate Republicans rejected a trio of bills aimed at election security. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., blocked each of the bills, claiming the legislation was an attempt by Democrats to rest control over elections “in the…
Just a day after prosecutors recommended Trump confidante Roger Stone get a seven-to-nine-year sentence for charges stemming from Robert Mueller’s Russian probe, the Justice Department reportedly has intervened reduce what it views as “extreme, excessive and grossly disproportionate” recommendation, a department official said. Stone, who prosecutors condemned for a “direct and brazen attack on the…
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged four members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army with nine criminal counts, accusing them of orchestrating and carrying out the 2017 hack of credit reporting agency Equifax. An indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Atlanta and unveiled today by the DOJ alleges that Beijing residents Wu…
The Iowa Democratic Party late Monday night said reporting discrepancies, not a hack, were responsible for delays in reporting results from the Iowa caucus. “This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion,” Mandy McClure, communications director for the Iowa Democractic Party, said in a statement. ”The…
Breaking with the U.S. stance on Huawei, the U.K. will let the company participate in building its 5G network but said it would put a secure framework in place to protect the network from high-risk vendors. ”We want world-class connectivity as soon as possible but this must not be at the expense of our national…
Congress took on dual issues of Fourth Amendment and privacy rights in a bill meant to reform the Patriot Act to end the authority of NSA’s phone recording program, as well as, reform the FISA process, addressing the problems revealed by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz last fall. The Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act…
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai’s decision to back the EU’s proposal to ban the use of face recognition in public spaces for five years drew praise from rights activists. “I think it is important that governments and regulations tackle it sooner rather than later and give a framework for it,” Reuters cited Pichai as saying at Bruegel…
An iPhone belonging to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos likely was hacked by Saudi Arabian prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) or operatives working on his behalf, a technical report indicated. Forensics on the phone showed it “was compromised via tools procured by Saud al Qahtani,” a close confidant of the prince, Motherboard cited a report by…
Journalist Glenn Greenwald has denied he encouraged a source in Brazil to hack cell phones from which he obtained information to use in reporting on widespread government corruption. “When the source first talked to me, he had already obtained all the material that he ended up providing us, making it logically impossible for me to…
