Tag Archive for: NPR

Russian Hackers Suspected In Cyber Attack At Federal Agencies : NPR

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News Highlights: Russian Hackers Suspected In Cyber Attack At Federal Agencies : NPR.

According to reports, the US Treasury Department, which is featured here in 2019, was hacked along with the US Department of Commerce. Russia is suspected, but denies involvement. The US government has acknowledged a violation and says it is investigating to make a full assessment.

Patrick Semansky / AP

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Patrick Semansky / AP

According to reports, the US Treasury Department, which is featured here in 2019, was hacked along with the US Department of Commerce. Russia is suspected, but denies involvement. The US government has acknowledged a violation and says it is investigating to make a full assessment.

Patrick Semansky / AP

Updated at 5:00 p.m. ET

According to US officials and media reports, Russian hackers working for the Kremlin are said to be responsible for breaches of US government computer systems in the Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security departments, which may have taken months to be discovered.

The hackers had allegedly broken into the email systems of the government departments, but the full extent of the breach was not immediately apparent as US officials rushed to make an assessment. There are concerns that hackers may have invaded other government departments and perhaps many private companies as well.

The Department of Commerce, the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security all acknowledged the breach in brief statements but did not provide details.

“We can confirm that there has been a breach in one of our offices,” said the Department of Commerce.

“We have worked closely with our agencies regarding recently discovered activity on government networks,” said NSC spokesman John Ullyot.

The US government did not identify Russia or any other actor as responsible.

Reuters first reported the story on Sunday, and subsequent reports identified Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, the SVR, as the most likely culprit.

Russia’s SVR, the rough equivalent of the CIA in the US, was blamed in 2014-15 for major hacks involving unclassified email systems at the White House, the State Department and joint chiefs of staff.

Russia on…

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Uganda Security Forces Ordered To Stop Detention Of Losing Presidential Candidate : NPR

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Soldiers patrol outside presidential challenger Bobi Wine’s home in Magere, Kampala, Uganda, Jan. 16, after President Yoweri Museveni was declared the winner of the election.

Nicholas Bamulanzeki/AP


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Soldiers patrol outside presidential challenger Bobi Wine’s home in Magere, Kampala, Uganda, Jan. 16, after President Yoweri Museveni was declared the winner of the election.

Nicholas Bamulanzeki/AP

A Uganda judge has ordered state security forces, who have kept the losing presidential candidate Bobi Wine detained in his home since mid-January, to stop surrounding Wine’s residence.

Wine, 38, a popular singer whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, was the main opposition candidate in the Jan. 14 presidential election. President Yoweri Museveni was reelected to a sixth term, winning 58% of the vote to Wine’s 34%, according to election officials. Wine disputes the results.

Uganda Election: President Yoweri Museveni Declared Winner As Bobi Wine Alleges Fraud

The court ruled that Wine’s effective house arrest was not in accordance with the law and that if the government wants him detained it should charge him with a crime, The Associated Press reports from the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

The AP says Museveni’s government has not yet responded to the court order and it’s not clear whether it will obey the ruling. Officials surrounded Wine’s house on Election Day and said he could not leave without a military escort, because he posed a threat to public order.

Museveni, who at 76 is twice Wine’s age, has been president for 35 years. Uganda has never had a peaceful transfer of power since the former colony gained independence from Great Britain in 1962.

NPR East Africa correspondent Eyder Peralta reported from Uganda that in the lead-up to the election…

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How A Cybersecurity Firm Uncovered The Massive Computer Hack : NPR

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Kevin Mandia, CEO of the cybersecurity firm FireEye, testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017. Mandia’s company was the first to sound the alarm about the massive hack of government agencies and private companies on Dec. 8.

Susan Walsh/AP


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Kevin Mandia, CEO of the cybersecurity firm FireEye, testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017. Mandia’s company was the first to sound the alarm about the massive hack of government agencies and private companies on Dec. 8.

Susan Walsh/AP

The first word that hackers had carried out a highly sophisticated intrusion into U.S. computer networks came on Dec. 8, when the cybersecurity firm FireEye announced it had been breached and some of its most valuable tools had been stolen.

“We escalated very quickly from the moment I got the first briefing that, ‘Hey, we have a security incident of some magnitude,’ ” FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia told All Things Considered co-host Mary Louise Kelly. “My gut was telling me it was something we needed to put people on right away.”

Mandia was right. Within days, the scope of the hack began to emerge.

Multiple U.S. agencies were successfully targeted, including the departments of State, Treasury, Commerce, Energy and Homeland Security as well as the National Institutes of Health.

The hackers attached their malware to a software update from Austin, Texas-based company SolarWinds, which makes software used by many federal agencies and thousands of private companies to monitor their computer networks.

Top Cyber Firm, FireEye, Says It's Been Hacked By A Foreign Govt.

The SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, is considered the most likely culprit, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and some members of Congress who have been briefed by…

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When Public Reaction Exceeds The Actual Hack : NPR

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A State Department report on Russian online operations to promote conspiracy theories and misinformation. Some analysts also warn of “perception hacks,” when relatively small-scale hacks are uncovered and then widely discussed by government officials, news organizations and on social media.

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A State Department report on Russian online operations to promote conspiracy theories and misinformation. Some analysts also warn of “perception hacks,” when relatively small-scale hacks are uncovered and then widely discussed by government officials, news organizations and on social media.

Jon Elswick/AP

A Russian group acquired U.S. voter data in at least a couple of states. The Iranians reportedly did the same. President Trump’s campaign website was briefly defaced.

As expected, this election season has brought a series of computer breaches and disinformation efforts coming from other countries. So how do we sort out the serious threats from mere cyber mischief?

There’s no easy answer, but at least there’s a catchphrase: a “perception hack.” This describes a relatively small-scale intrusion that probably won’t cause much actual harm, yet it may have an outsized psychological impact once it’s uncovered and enters the public bloodstream via government officials, news organizations and social media.

“We see malicious actors attempt to play on our collective expectation of wide-spread interference to create the perception that they’re more impactful than they in fact are,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, wrote in a blog post. “We call it perception hacking — an attempt to weaponize uncertainty to sow distrust and division.”

In some ways, a perception hack is the flip side of what happened during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

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