Tag Archive for: probe

apple: Apple sounds alarm over hacking, govt orders probe

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Messages from Apple to iPhones of several Opposition lawmakers and journalists warning them that they could be potential targets of an unspecified ‘state-sponsored’ privacy attack raised a furore in India Tuesday, prompting New Delhi to order a probe of the reported bids to hack into the seemingly breach-proof mobile devices caught in the poll-season political maelstrom.

“The Government of Bharat takes its role of protecting the privacy and security of all citizens very seriously and will investigate to get to the bottom of these notifications,” electronics and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a post on social platform X. “In light of such information and widespread speculation, we have asked Apple to join the probe with real, accurate information on the alleged state-sponsored attacks.”

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Users facing such attacks are “individually targeted because of who they are or what they do”, said Apple’s alert message. The company later said in a statement that it did not attribute to a “specific state-sponsored attacker” the threat warnings sent to the iPhone-users.

Also read | ETtech Explainer: why Apple sent emails about ‘state-sponsored attacks’ to opposition leaders

MoS for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the government will investigate these threat notifications and also Apple’s claims of being secure and privacy compliant devices.

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‘Can’t Provide Info on Cause’

“After today’s ‘threat notifications’ being received by many people including MPs and those in geopolitics, we expect Apple to clarify the following: If its devices are secure, why are these ‘threat notifications’ sent to people in over 150 countries? Because, Apple has repeatedly claimed their products are designed for privacy,” Chandrasekhar said on X.Since early Tuesday, Opposition leaders such as Trinamool Congress’ Mohua Moitra, Shiv Sena (Uddhav)’s

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CT’s ECHN cyberattacks may not be related to FBI hacking probe

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The FBI has taken out a massive automatic hacking system that is responsible for infecting hundreds of thousands of computers throughout the world and ransomware attacks, but it doesn’t appear to be connected to the Prospect Medical Holdings attack impacting Connecticut hospitals.

The system named Qakbot did infiltrate computer systems on the East Coast, but those attacks targeted “financial institutions,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said when announcing the takedown.

It also attacked a medical device manufacturer on the West Coast, he said.

While Prospect is based in California, Wray did not identify any health care providers impacted by the malware system, nor did an FBI press release.

Prospect facilities in Connecticut, including Manchester, Rockville, and Waterbury hospitals, were the victims of a cyberattack on Aug. 3.

Last year, Wray said that the system was used to steal gigabytes from a health care provider, and that stolen data was later leaked on the dark web.

Wray said that the hacking system enabled “the most prolific ransomware groups” to cause losses of hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses around the world, specifically naming Conti and ProLock as attackers.

There was no mention of Rhysida, the international extortion group claiming responsibility for the Prospect hack.

A spokesman from the FBI’s New Haven office would not say if the investigation into Rhysida was in any way connected to the Qakbot announcement.

“I won’t confirm or deny the existence of an investigation but will say that FBI is aware of the cyberattack you reference. There is no specifics I can share about Qakbot Takedown,” the spokesman said.

Nonetheless, the FBI has “crippled one of the longest running botnets every seen,” Wray said. “The FBI neutralized this far-reaching criminal supply chain, cutting it off at its knees.”

Along with the financial institutions on the East Coast and the medical device manufacturer on the West Coast, the bot network has also attacked a critical infrastructure government contractor in the Midwest.

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Hackers penetrated LAUSD computers much earlier than previously known, district probe finds

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Los Angeles, CA - September 06: Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District Alberto M. Carvalho speaks during a press conference at Edward R. Roybal Learning Center on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022, in Los Angeles, CA. There's been a major cyberattack on the Los Angeles Unified School District. Major problems over the weekend. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Supt. Alberto M. Carvalho speaks at a September news conference about a major cyberattack on the Los Angeles Unified School District. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

An intrusion into the computer systems of the Los Angeles school district began more than a month earlier than previously disclosed and likely exposed confidential information, including Social Security numbers, of more than 500 people who worked for district contractors, according to information filed with the state.

As the district previously disclosed, the security breach does not appear to extend to the payroll records and Social Security numbers for the tens of thousands of district employees. An undisclosed number of students enrolled at some point from 2013 through 2016 and some employees during that period appear to have lost information that includes their date of birth and address. California school districts don’t collect student Social Security numbers.

The updated information comes by way of a “Notice of Data Breach” that the nation’s second-largest school system was required under state law to send to potential victims.

School district officials Friday did not provide information on the number of possible victims. In addition to having to notify victims, a notice letter must be filed with the state attorney general when the number of those affected surpasses 500 California residents, the mandated threshold for public notification.

District officials had previously stated that there would be a small but not-yet-determined number of victims — “outliers,” as Supt. Alberto Carvalho described them. The victims would be notified and assisted, he added, while emphasizing that the overriding narrative was one of a worse disaster averted.

Hackers made off with about 500 gigabytes of data — a figure agreed on by both the hackers and the school system. That’s a large haul compared with what an individual user would maintain, but a tiny fraction of the data under the control of L.A. Unified.

Stealing data is only one part of an attack. The second part involves encrypting computer systems so that its users cannot get in, paralyzing the ability to conduct everyday business. Hackers managed to encrypt servers in the…

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Leak probe highlights U.S. Supreme Court’s problems protecting information

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WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) – The investigation into the leak of a draft of last year’s Supreme Court ruling overturning the national right to abortion laid bare a persistent problem at the top U.S. judicial body and the broader federal judiciary – creaky tech systems and lax security protocols for handling sensitive documents.

The inquiry, detailed in a 20-page report released on Thursday, failed to uncover who leaked the draft authored by Justice Samuel Alito to the news outlet Politico last May, a month before the ruling was formally issued – in part due to information technology record-keeping deficiencies.

The investigation, ordered by Chief Justice John Roberts and headed by the court’s chief security official Gail Curley, found that “technical limitations” made it “impossible” to rule out whether any employees emailed the draft to anyone else and said the court lacked the ability to identify those who printed it out.

Investigators could not search and analyze many event logs maintained by the court’s operating system because, the report said, “at the time the system lacked substantial logging and search functions.”

The report said 34 court employees – out of the 97 interviewed – acknowledged printing out the draft. The investigators found few confirmed print jobs because several printers at the court had little ability to log print jobs and many were not part of its centralized network.

Cybersecurity expert Mark Lanterman, who has conducted training at the Supreme Court, said it appeared the court could stand to bolster controls to guard against leaks but noted that even highly secure networks can remain vulnerable to bad actors.

“People – we’re the weakest link,” said Lanterman, chief technology officer at the firm Computer Forensic Services. “They could invest millions of dollars in the federal judiciary’s cybersecurity, but all it takes is one person with a motive to leak.”

Carrie Severino, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas who now heads the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, said Roberts bears much of the responsibility for creating an environment where “security measures were so inadequate.”

“It’s never going be possible to perfectly protect against leaking,”…

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