Tag Archive for: Protecting

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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Joint Statement on Protecting Human Rights Defenders Online

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The text of the following statement is released by the Governments of the United States of America and the European Union in advance of the third U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council Ministerial in Washington, D.C. on December 5, 2022.

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The U.S.-EU partnership is a cornerstone of our shared strength, prosperity, and commitment to advancing freedom, democracy, and respect for human rights around the world.  In the framework of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, we address the misuse of technology threatening security and human rights and have committed to strengthen our cooperation on protecting human rights defenders online; promoting the open, free, global, interoperable, secure, and reliable Internet as stated in the Declaration for the Future of the Internet; combatting online harassment and abuse; eliminating arbitrary and unlawful surveillance; combatting government-imposed Internet shutdowns; and countering disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference.

Digital technologies are a vital resource for human rights defenders and civic actors around the world, including in the context of documenting human rights violations and abuses, and international humanitarian law violations.  However, these technologies can also be misused to target human rights defenders and undermine civic space.  The United States and the European Union (EU) are deeply concerned by the rapid growth of online threats against human rights defenders and the ongoing contraction of civic space around the world.  Human rights defenders continue to face threats and attacks, including arbitrary or unlawful online surveillance, censorship, harassment, smear campaigns, disinformation to include gendered disinformation, targeted Internet shutdowns, and doxing.  Online attacks often pave the way for physical human rights violations and abuses, including beatings, killings, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention.

Women human rights defenders are disproportionately impacted by threats and attacks, which are more often gendered and sexualized than threats against their male counterparts and increasingly take place online.  Many women human rights…

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Optimising and protecting your business model

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Optimising and protecting your business model – InDaily


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How NZ’s top 3 telcos are protecting Kiwis from cyber threats

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Ahead of Cyber Smart Week and following the cyber attack on Australian telecommunications company Optus, 1News checked in with three major players in the New Zealand market to see how Kiwis are being protected from cyber crime.

The computer hacker who stole the personal data of almost 10 million customers of a telecommunications company in one of Australia’s worst privacy breaches used techniques to conceal their identity, actions and whereabouts, police said on Friday.

But Optus maintains it was the target of a sophisticated cyber attack that penetrated several layers of security.

1News spoke to telecommunications companies, Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees about their security measures and how they help keep their customers’ data safe.

Vodafone/One NZ

Sam Sinnott, spokesperson from Vodafone, said it’s aware of the cyber attack on Optus, “and like all large companies, we take our responsibilities around cyber security extremely seriously”.

“Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, we can’t share more detail with you, however we regularly test and review our cyber security defences, including the technology, processes, and training that we have in place to keep our customers, systems, and employees secure.

“We can also share that DEFEND is an award-winning company themselves and their expertise is invaluable to New Zealand businesses. DEFEND offers a range of threat protection services as well as incident response and security management and has won multiple awards including Microsoft’s New Zealand partner of the year for 2022,” Sinnott said.

At an announcement about the company’s rebrand to One NZ last week, chief executive Jason Paris said Vodafone has a 24/7 manned cyber defence centre.

He said every business customer will have the opportunity to upgrade to Microsoft’s premium security offering as Vodafone becomes One NZ.

“Given what’s happening recently in Australia – the security breaches and the constant attacks that New Zealander’s don’t see but we defend every single day – it’s a great thing for New Zealand businesses,” Paris said.

Paris said the company has a range of world-leading technology solutions that makes sure “we are sensing in real-time all of…

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