Tag Archive for: probe

oil: Ib & Central Cyber Security Agencies Join Probe Into Oil Ransomware Attack | Guwahati News

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Dibrugarh: The Intelligence Bureau (IB) and country’s two leading cyber security agencies — Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) — have joined the probe into the ransomware attack on state-run explorer Oil India Limited’s (OIL) headquarters at Duliajan in upper Assam’s Dibrugarh district.
Two representatives from each of these agencies reached Duliajan on Friday to join the probe being conducted by the local police. The anonymous hackers had sought a ransom of $7.5 million from OIL to restore the affected network.
The CERT-In is the national nodal agency that deals with cyber security threats such as hacking and phishing. The NCIIPC is the national nodal agency that handles critical information infrastructure protection. It is a unit of the National Technical Research Organisation under the Prime Minister’s Office.
To add teeth to the probe, the OIL has also separately engaged the services of a Delhi-based private cyber security agency with international exposure.
OIL spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika on Saturday said, “Our production and drilling operations are functioning normally. Our communication network is also not affected as we have an alternate network of computers in place to deal with such kind of emergencies. Most of the data is safe as we were able to isolate the infected servers… we suspect it is the handiwork of international hackers.”

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Lapsus$ Cracked? Two Teens Charged In Hacking Group Probe

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Police in London Friday said they have charged a pair of teenagers in connection with an investigation of the Lapsus$ hacker group.

This is the second arrest of people related to the activities of the Lapsus$ hacker group which has been lined to multiple hacks of some of the top tech companies in the world. Police in the city of London last week unveiled the arrest of seven people between the ages of 16 and 21.

London police Friday said that two teenagers, aged 16 and 17, are now in police custody after being charged in connection to what it termed the “hacking group” investigation without mentioning the “Lapsus$” name.

[Related: ‘Two Months Is Too Long’: Tenable CEO Slams Okta’s Breach Response]

However, the investigation is related to the Lapsus$ gang, according to the BBC.

“Both teenagers have been charged with: three counts of unauthorised access to a computer with intent to impair the reliability of data; one count of fraud by false representation and one count of unauthorised access to a computer with intent to hinder access to data. The 16-year-old has also been charged with one count of causing a computer to perform a function to secure unauthorised access to a program,” Detective Inspector Michael O‘Sullivan of the City of London Police said in a statement.

The Lapsus$ hacking group this year has been very active. Despite its activity, however, little is known about it, including where it is based or if it has ties to other ransomware gangs.

Global software services firm Globant Wednesday said the source code and documents of some of its customers were hacked, a hack which other media attributed to Lapsus$

Lapsus$ on March 22 claimed via a Telegram post to have stolen data from identity security giant Octa.

Two days before boasting about hitting Okta, Lapsus$ claimed via a Telegram post that it breached internal source code repositories for Microsoft Azure DevOps, and showed images related to Bing and Cortana projects.

Lapsus$ in early March claimed to have stolen Samsung’s source code and biometric unlocking algorithms for its Galaxy devices.

In late February, Nvidia allegedly launched a retaliatory strike against Lapsus$ to prevent…

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Trump says Durham’s probe will expose ‘the crime of the century’

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Donald Trump claims Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the former president’s ties to Russia revealed the alleged spying by Hillary Clinton‘s campaign was ‘treason at the highest level.’

‘It looks like this is just the beginning, because, if you read the filing and have any understanding of what took place – and I called this a long time ago – you’re going to see a lot of other things happening, having to do with what, really, just is a continuation of the crime of the century,’ Trump said in an exclusive interview with Fox News on Tuesday. 

‘This is such a big event, nobody’s seen anything like this.’

The former president claimed he ‘didn’t have any’ insight into the allegations outlined in Durham’s February 11 court filing until it was made public, but noted that the Department of Justice official found ‘things far bigger than anybody thought possible.’

Durham alleged that Clinton’s presidential campaign paid to ‘infiltrate’ and exploit servers at Trump Tower, Trump’s Central Park West apartment, a ‘particular health care provider’ and the White House to ‘establish an inference and narrative’ that would tie Trump to Russia. 

The filing also accused Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann of bringing Trump-Russia allegations that ‘relied, in part’ on traffic assembled by the servers to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 

Durham was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General William Barr to investigate possible misconduct within the U.S. government as it investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any ties to the Trump campaign. 

Donald Trump (pictured in January 2022) claims Special Counsel John Durham's probe into the former president's ties to Russia revealed the alleged spying by Hillary Clinton 's campaign was 'treason at the highest level'

Donald Trump (pictured in January 2022) claims Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the former president’s ties to Russia revealed the alleged spying by Hillary Clinton ‘s campaign was ‘treason at the highest level’ 

In a section of the filing titled Factual Background, Durham argued those involved with the infiltration of the servers were ‘mining traffic and and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.’ 

The former president – who alleged ‘people were suspicious that something was going on’ during the 2016…

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Explained: What is GitHub, at the centre of online sexual harassment probe?

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The open-source software repository service GitHub is in the news after it was used to create and share an offensively named app that sexually harassed Muslim women in India. The app used pictures of the women stolen from their social media handles and invited “users” to bid for them.

IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has announced that GitHub has blocked the user, and the Indian Computer Emergency Response System (Cert-In), the nodal agency for monitoring cyber security incidents, has been asked to form “a high-level committee” to investigate. Delhi and Mumbai Police have registered FIRs on complaints by some of the women who were targeted.

In June 2021, another app with a similar-sounding name, which too was hosted on GitHub, had been used to harass Muslim women in the same way. Police in Delhi and Noida had registered FIRs, but the probe has not progressed. Delhi Police have said GitHub is not cooperating.

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What is GitHub?

GitHub is the world’s largest open-source developer community platform where users upload their projects and code for others to view, edit, and tweak. The idea of GitHub is this: any developer can upload whatever software code or app code or software idea they have on the platform, and have others collaborate with them to help improve it, find errors, and fix problems.

Any public project can be viewed by others on the platform. Most of the features of the platform are free for users. Organisations can use paid accounts to upload their software and projects for collaboration.

The platform uses the software Git, which was created in 2005 by Linus Trovalds, the developer of the open-source operating system Linux, to track changes in a set of files and for coordination in software development.

What has it said on the complaints?

GitHub has taken down the app, but has not revealed who was responsible for it.

“GitHub has longstanding policies against content and conduct involving harassment, discrimination, and inciting violence. We suspended a user account following the investigation of reports of such activity, all of which violate our policies,” it said in a statement.

What is not…

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