Tag Archive for: officials
Hackers impersonated Ukrainian agencies in emails to Polish officials
The hacker group UAC-0050 sent emails claiming to be from Ukrainian government agencies to Polish state authorities, the State Special Communications Service reported on Dec. 8.
Government employees in Poland and Ukraine received emails with subject lines related to “debts” and “legal claims,” according to an investigation carried out by the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA). The emails also contained attachments in the form of password-protected RAR files.
When opened, these files could infect users’ computers with RemcosRAT or MeduzaStealer malware.
The emails came from legitimate government accounts that had been compromised, according to CERT-UA. Many of them came from the gov.ua domain.
CERT-UA is reportedly taking measures to localize and counteract the cyber threat.
The UAC-0050 hacker group has previously sent emails impersonating the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Pechersk Court, and Ukrtelecom.
The State Special Communications Service came under new leadership on Dec. 1. Yurii Myronenko was named the new agency head after its previous chief Yurii Shchyhol was dismissed amid charges of embezzlement.
Ukraine war latest: Scammers reportedly cheat volunteers out of millions on drone purchases
Key developments on Dec. 8: * Investigation reveals scheme to steal money from volunteers on drone purchases * Germany hands over shells, drones, other equipment in latest delivery to Ukraine * Ambassador: Russia holds 500 Ukrainian medical workers captive * Russian strike on Dnipropetrovsk Obl…
Alexander Khrebet
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Election security threats require more federal resources, officials say
State and local election officials warned during a Senate Rules and Administration Committee hearing on Wednesday that nefarious uses of emerging technologies, hacking attempts and the harassment of election workers risk undermining the public’s faith in the accuracy of U.S. elections without more federal intervention.
Since the 2020 presidential election, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said his state has live-streamed equipment certifications to promote transparency and worked with the National Association of Secretaries of State and federal agencies to instill trust in the voting process. But he added that “there’s still more that can be done” at the federal level, including providing local jurisdictions with more election-related funding and guidance to safeguard their systems and personnel.
He said artificial intelligence, for instance, “has the potential to confuse voters and wreak havoc on the administration of elections,” including allowing deepfakes of election officials to spread misinformation on social media.
“If I were to go on TV afterwards, or even Instagram Live, to debunk these deepfakes, who would know which was the real me?” he added. “Foreign actors from hostile states such as Iran, China, Russia and North Korea appear ready to take advantage of this nightmare scenario.”
Lingering conspiracies about the accuracy of U.S. elections are also resulting in new challenges for election officials. Some jurisdictions are being overwhelmed with what Fontes called “analog” distributed denial-of-service — or DDoS — attacks, which he said “comes in overly voluminous and unnecessary public records requests that have absolutely nothing at their end.”
“We hear of a DDoS attack against an electronic system where hackers will come in and absolutely flood a system with digital attacks,” Fontes said, adding that he supports rigorous transparency but that these types of constant requests often represent “a coordinated effort to undermine the democracy that upholds our republic.”
While not all officials at the hearing voiced support for more federal involvement in the voting process or expressed concerns about the intimidation of election…
Parliament Panel May Summon Apple Officials Over ‘Hacking’Say Sources –
1 November, 2023 | Srishti Ruchandani
The committee’s secretariat has expressed ‘deep concern’ and is treating the matter with the ‘utmost seriousness’,” the official said.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) is reportedly considering summoning Apple officials for an upcoming meeting to address recent alerts related to “state-sponsored attacks” sent to Opposition leaders and other public figures in the country on their iPhones, citing an official from the committee’s secretariat. The committee’s secretariat has expressed ‘deep concern’ and is treating the matter with the ‘utmost seriousness’,” the official said.
This issue came to light when several Opposition leaders claimed to have received notifications from Apple regarding “state-sponsored attackers” attempting to compromise their iPhones, and they accused the government of being involved in hacking. The government has denied these allegations and has stated that a thorough investigation will be conducted.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Raghav Chadha, and some aides of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi also received the message from Apple.
Some others who received similar alerts included think-tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF) president Samir Saran, an OSD of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan.
Apple, in response to the controversy, issued a statement clarifying that they did not attribute the threat notifications to any specific state-sponsored attacker and suggested that the notifications might be false alarms.
The government expressed its concern and confirmed the initiation of an investigation into the incident. They also noted that Apple had issued a similar advisory in nearly 150 countries, and the alerts were considered vague in nature.
IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw rejected the opposition’s attack on the government, saying the “compulsive…