Tag Archive for: chris

Biden Names Chris Inglis to Be First National Cyber Director

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His former colleagues at the National Security Agency credit Mr. Inglis with leading the agency through one of the darkest periods in its history, after leaks from Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor who stole tens of thousands of classified documents and shared them with journalists.

His arrival in the Biden administration comes as the United States is contemplating responses to the Russian SolarWinds operation, in which hackers got into network management software used by most of America’s largest companies and many government agencies, and what appears to be a Chinese exploitation of Microsoft servers.

The administration’s response to those attacks is likely to come before Mr. Inglis is confirmed, which will likely take months. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, has promised a series of “seen and unseen” responses to the SolarWinds attack. Officials have said a public response is coming, but no announcements are expected this week.

Some in the Biden administration had worried about creating competing power centers by appointing a national cyber director. But officials said their concerns had been resolved by tapping Mr. Inglis, someone who has strong ties on Capitol Hill and has worked closely with Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser at the White House for cyber issues.

Mr. Inglis, Ms. Neuberger and Ms. Easterly have all worked closely together in the past. While some critics of the National Security Agency have questioned the fact that all three spent significant portions of their careers at the agency, others described the experience as an asset.

“I can’t think of anyone who has more unique insight into the history, creation and congressional intent behind this position,” said Frank J. Cilluffo, the director for Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security, who served on the commission with Mr. Inglis. “He knows what it will take to fulfill the mission and to succeed.”

Colleagues describe Ms. Easterly, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point who holds a master’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics from the University…

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SolarWinds hires Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos following huge hack

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  • SolarWinds is hiring former Homeland Security official Chris Krebs and ex-Facebook security chief Alex Stamos to help shore up its security following its huge hack, which government agencies said was probably “Russian in nature.”
  • Krebs and Stamos both told The Financial Times they expect to uncover a lot more damage done by the hack than has been reported already.
  • Krebs headed up the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) until November, when he was fired by President Trump.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

SolarWinds has hired two of the biggest names in cybersecurity, following the gigantic breach, which meant it acted as the gateway for hackers to penetrate US government systems.

SolarWinds announced on Thursday it was retaining a new security consulting business founded by Chris Krebs, a former Homeland Security cybersecurity official, and ex-Facebook security chief and Stanford University professor Alex Stamos.

The SolarWinds hack was first revealed in December, and likely had been ongoing since at least March. Hackers got into SolarWinds’ systems, which monitor for server outages. From there, were able to get into the systems of US government agencies by putting out malicious code in SolarWind updates. A joint task force of US agencies on Tuesday issued a statement saying the hack was “likely Russian in nature.”

“We have brought in the expertise of Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos to assist in this review and provide best-in-class guidance on our journey to evolve into an industry leading secure software development company,” a company spokesman told Reuters in a statement.

Krebs told The Financial Times it will take years to uncover the full extent of the damage done by the hack.

“This has been a multiyear effort by one of the very best, the most sophisticated intelligence operations in the world. It was just one small part of a much larger plan that’s highly sophisticated, so I would be expecting more companies that have been compromised; more techniques that we’re yet to find […] There’s so much more to be written I think in this chapter of Russian cyber-intelligence operations,” said…

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‘Blackhat,’ a Cyberthriller Starring Chris Hemsworth – New York Times

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New York Times

'Blackhat,' a Cyberthriller Starring Chris Hemsworth
New York Times
The inspiration for the script, by Morgan Davis Foehl, was an attack on the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in Iran by malware deployed through USB flash drives. The movie opens with an explosion at … The contrast between the richness of the action …

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flame malware – read more

Chris Hemsworth goes to ‘nerd school’ for hacking in cyber-terrorism thriller ‘Cyber’

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The idea of American and Chinese military forces working together on “a case of high-level computer hacking” may be a bit mind-boggling, being that the two countries are more-or-less sworn cyber-enemies intent on hacking each other for cyber espionage, but it is the premise for the upcoming Michael Mann cyber-thriller dubbed “Cyber.” That’s not the type of thing I normally follow, but the purported
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