Tag Archive for: case

Biden Presses Computer Chips Case in Advance of Senate Vote

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WASHINGTON — 

Calling semiconductors “the building blocks for the modern economy,” President Joe Biden on Monday asked Congress to move quickly and send him a bipartisan bill designed to boost the computer chips industry and high-tech research in the United States.

The Senate was originally expected to take a critical vote in the evening to advance the legislation, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced that storms on the East Coast had disrupted travel plans for several senators and that he would be delaying the vote until Tuesday morning. The bill needs support from at least 60 senators to clear procedural hurdles and place it on a path to final passage later this week, giving Biden a signature win on legislation his administration says is necessary to protect national security and help the U.S. better compete with China.

The bill provides about $52 billion in grants and other incentives for the semiconductor industry as well as a 25% tax credit for those companies that build chip plants in the U.S. Supporters say those incentives are necessary to compete with other nations that are also spending billions of dollars to lure manufacturers.

The pandemic has underscored how much the United States relies on semiconductor manufacturers abroad to provide the chips used in automobiles, computers, appliances and weapons systems. The Biden administration has been warning lawmakers they need to act before leaving for their August recess to ensure the companies invest in U.S. fabs instead of building the plants elsewhere.

Biden, who is still recovering from COVID-19, held a virtual roundtable with members of his administration and industry leaders about the merits of the bill. He said that a shortage of semiconductors was the primary driver of rising automobile costs, which are a core component of the inflation gripping the country.

Biden said the U.S. relies on Taiwan for the production of the most advanced chips and that China was also starting to move ahead of the U.S. on the manufacturing of such chips.

“America invented the semiconductor. It’s time to bring it home,” Biden said.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told him that chip manufacturers are…

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Ransomware Attacks: Why Case Studies Provide Rare Learning Opportunities

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by Patterson Belknap • May 4, 2022

The United States suffered a staggering 421.5 million ransomware attempts in 2021, a 98% increase from 2020. Those figures come from United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs staff report titled “America’s Data Held Hostage: Case Studies in Ransomware Attacks on American Companies.”

The report details three companies’ experiences responding to attacks by Russia-based ransomware group REvil. The companies varied in size and industry but their previously established incident response plans in place helped mitigate the damage from the attacks.  However, the companies reported receiving little assistance from the Federal Government, highlighting the need for change at the federal level to better combat future attacks.

The report provides a comprehensive overview of ransomware’s state of play but the three case studies on anonymous companies’ reactions to ransomware attacks provides the freshest insight. The companies ranged from a Fortune 500 company with over 100,000 employees to a technology firm with approximately 50 employees.  Each had an incident response plan and various cybersecurity measures in place that helped mitigate the effects but to different levels of success.  Offline backups were uniformly hailed as one of the best defense measures each had in place to keep their company running while addressing the attacks but they all acknowledged at the attacks’ conclusions that they needed to address gaps in their plans and security that the attacks uncovered.

One of the companies did not need the government’s help responding to the ransomware attack but the two others reported little help from the government despite seeking its assistance.  Not surprisingly, the FBI continues to focus its efforts on its core law enforcement mission by identifying the bad actors and bringing them to justice, rather than proactively protecting and assisting victim companies.

Cybersecurity Incident Reporting: Time for FBI and CISA Reforms?

The Committee made seven recommendations in its report based on its investigation, three of which called for reform in the government:

  1. The Cybersecurity and…

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Mother’s claims tossed in hacking case suit against school district

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Seven years after a Sachem North High School student pleaded guilty to a charge of hacking school computers, a federal judge in Central Islip has dismissed claims by his mother that the district had forced her son to do computer security work for years without pay. 

Former student Matthew Calicchio and parents Sandra and Michael Calicchio had argued in a 2014 federal lawsuit that Matthew Calicchio, then 17, was forced into what amounted to involuntary servitude by district officials, including then-Principal John Dolan and assistant Principal Andrew Larson. According to a revised 2015 complaint, between 2010 and 2013, Matthew Calicchio repeatedly was taken out of class and lunch to do the work, warned not to tell his parents and told the FBI would raid his house if he did not comply. The complaint asked for damages in excess of $75,000. Sandra Calicchio lives in Chester, Massachusetts, according to court records.

Lawyers for the district and its officials said in filings that the claims were false, and in March a federal magistrate recommended dismissal because Sandra Calicchio, who represented herself, had skipped multiple court-ordered conferences. Judge Denis Hurley agreed and on April 5 ordered the dismissal. He also ordered Matthew Calicchio and Michael Calicchio to discontinue the suit or file a status report within two weeks.

Scott Lockwood, the lawyer representing the father and the son, did not respond to a request for comment. Lawyers for the school district did not respond. Dolan and Larson, now principal at the high school, did not respond. The Calicchios could not be reached. 

Mathew Calicchio was expelled from Sachem schools in 2013, earning a GED that year from Suffolk County Community College. When Suffolk police arrested him, authorities said he had accessed student records, including Social Security numbers and confidential medical information, then posted some of the information online in community forums. 

In November 2014, he pleaded guilty to computer trespass, a felony. After a year of probation, the court vacated that plea and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. 

The Calicchios’ lawsuit alleged district officials had Matthew…

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UK police charge two teens in connection with Lapsus$ hacking group case

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After arresting seven alleged members of the hacking group Lapsus$ last week, London police have charged two of them with multiple computer crimes. The teenagers, aged 16 and 17, remain in police custody in connection with the investigation.

“Both teenagers have been charged with: three counts of unauthorized access to a computer with intent to impair the reliability of data; one count of fraud by false representation and one count of unauthorized access to a computer with intent to hinder access to data,” the City of London Police said in a news release. “The 16-year-old has also been charged with one count of causing a computer to perform a function to secure unauthorized access to a program. They will both appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court this morning (April 1st).”

Lapsus$ claimed to have downloaded 37GB of Microsoft source code for key products like Bing and Cortana, along with mobile apps. They also reportedly compromised the security system of MFA company Okta, forcing the company to admit that it made a mistake in the way it handled the attack.

One of the teens arrested was reportedly a 16-year-old Oxford resident known as “Breachbase” or “White,” who has supposedly made the equivalent of $14 million in Bitcoin. London police have not released any names, however, nothing that the people charged are juveniles and that reporting any identifying information about them is prohibited.

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