Tag Archive for: seek

5 seek SC House seat vacated by retiring Rep. Chip Huggins | Columbia News

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COLUMBIA — A crowded field is running to fill the seat of retiring state Rep. Chip Huggins.

The Lexington County Republican served for 23 years in the district that covers the fast growing area north of Lake Murray, and parts of Irmo.

Now, five candidates — four Republicans, who will compete in a primary run off June 14, and one Libertarian — are seeking the office.

The Republicans include: Jay Kilmartin, a businessman who owns The Melting Pot restaurant; two Lexington-Richland School District Five board members Rebecca Blackburn Hines and Catherine Huddle; and Christian Stegmaier, a Columbia area attorney.

John Davis, the lone Libertarian, runs a computer security business.

Stegmaier, a Columbia area attorney, ran for office once before seeking the state Senate seat currently held by Democrat Dick Harpootlian. He said the growth around Irmo and Chapin is what drove him to run in the current race.

“We need someone focused on building roads and infrastructure that meet our significant needs,” he said.

Stegmaier also wants to increase funding for South Carolina’s public universities and K-12 education.

Kilmartin, a first-time candidate, calls himself a “liberty-minded” Republican with a pro-business stance.

Other candidates did not immediately return calls from The Post and Courier.

In other Lexington County races, incumbent Micah Caskey faces a primary challenger in District 89, covering most of West Columbia and Cayce, as does Cal Forrest in District 39, which falls south and west of Lake Murray with towns like Gilbert, Batesburg-Leesville and Saluda.

Caskey, an attorney, has held office since 2016, taking over the seat from the influential and long-serving former S.C. House Ethics Committee chairman Kenny Bingham. After defeating West Columbia Mayor Tem Miles in a runoff, Caskey went on to win that year’s general election. 

Caskey is challenged in 2022 by Melanie Shull, a former music teacher and founder of Christian faith magazine Living Real.

Forrest also has served since 2016, defeating the then incumbent Ralph Shealy Kennedy in the primary before going on to win the General Election.

Forrest is challenged by Katie Hall of Saluda, a mother and…

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Street fighting begins in Kyiv; people urged to seek shelter

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops stormed toward Ukraine’s capital early Saturday, and street fighting broke out as city officials urged residents to take shelter. The country’s president refused an American offer to evacuate, insisting that he would stay. “The fight is here,” he said.

The clashes followed two days of fighting that resulted in hundreds of casualties and pummeled bridges, schools and apartment buildings. U.S. officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to overthrow Ukraine’s government and replace it with a regime of his own.

The assault represented Putin’s boldest effort yet to redraw the world map and revive Moscow’s Cold War-era influence. It triggered new international efforts to end the invasion, including direct sanctions on Putin.

As his country confronted explosions and gunfire, and as the fate of Kyiv hung in the balance, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed for a cease-fire and warned in a bleak statement that multiple cities were under attack.

“This night we have to stand firm,” he said. “The fate of Ukraine is being decided right now.”

Zelenskyy was urged to evacuate Kyiv at the behest of the U.S. government but turned down the offer, according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation. The official quoted the president as saying that “the fight is here” and that he needed anti-tank ammunition but “not a ride.”

City officials in Kyiv urged residents to take shelter, to stay away from windows and to take precautions to avoid flying debris or bullets.

The Kremlin accepted Kyiv’s offer to hold talks, but it appeared to be an effort to squeeze concessions out of the embattled Zelenskyy instead of a gesture toward a diplomatic solution.

The Russian military continued its advance, laying claim Friday to the southern Ukraine city of Melitopol. Still, it was unclear in the fog of war how much of Ukraine is still under Ukrainian control and how much or little Russian forces have seized.

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As fighting persisted, Ukraine’s military reported shooting down an II-76 Russian transport plane carrying paratroopers near Vasylkiv, a city 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of…

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Cyber threats spur brokerages to seek tech partners

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Insurance – not computer security – is probably your core business as a broker. But with cyber threats on the rise, some brokers are seeking information-security partners to help them manage their commercial clients’ cyber risk.

WTW has several relationships with information technology and cybersecurity providers, said Michélle Lawson, the company’s cyber practice leader for Canada.

One of them is New York City-based SecurityScorecard, a tech vendor that assesses clients’ cybersecurity using several risk categories, including web application security, network security, and patching.

“SecurityScorecard reviews a company’s technical security posture and assigns a score to that,” said Lawson. “We actively explore relationships with additional vendors to continuously broaden our breadth of cyber risk data we consider in assessing a client’s cyber risk.”

More insurance buyers are becoming aware of cyber threats, observes Annamaria Landaverde, senior vice president and cyber team lead for Munich Re U.S. She addressed the topic in a 2021 webinar.

Many companies store confidential information about themselves, their customers or other companies, as Travelers Companies Inc. notes. So, your clients face potential liability risk if confidential information is exposed in a data breach.

Another corporate cyber risk is financial loss if malware is downloaded from an email. Malware can cause files to be lost, encrypted or otherwise damaged, said Travelers.

For its part, WTW offers Cyber Quantified, a tool designed to make clients aware of their exposure to data breach and network outages.

“When an insurer is underwriting the risk, they’re looking for clients who are proactively addressing cyber issues consistently,” said Lawson. “A client who is well-informed and addressing these risks proactively will differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack.”

Integrating Cyber Quantified with SecurityScorecard at no additional cost is offered as a value-added service to WTW’s clients.

“We provide this type of integration because we understand that cyber insurance buying decisions need to go beyond just traditional benchmarking,” said Lawson. “Cyber risk…

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House lawmakers seek explanation from FBI’s Wray over ransomware response

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By Sean Lyngaas, CNN

(CNN) — Leaders of the House Oversight and Reform Committee are questioning the FBI’s handling of a July ransomware attack on a Florida-based IT firm that compromised up to 1,500 businesses.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, and James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, have requested a briefing from FBI Director Christopher Wray after the bureau reportedly withheld a key to decrypt the ransomware for nearly three weeks, potentially costing victims millions of dollars in recovery costs.

“Congress must be fully informed whether the FBI’s strategy and actions are adequately and appropriately addressing” the threat of ransomware to the US economy, Maloney and Comer wrote Wednesday in a letter to Wray that was shared with CNN. The lawmakers said they want to “understand the rationale behind the FBI’s decision to withhold” the key to unlock computers infected by the ransomware.

The FBI has in recent years ramped up resources to address ransomware, with FBI field offices across the country communicating with victim US companies. But a growing chorus of lawmakers wants to know if the bureau is balancing the need to protect victims with the need to disrupt criminal groups based in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Disrupting the hackers

The Washington Post reported last week that the FBI withheld the decryption key as the bureau planned an operation to disrupt the hackers, a Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate known as REvil. That operation never materialized as REvil mysteriously went offline in mid-July, only to reemerge in September.

The Washington Post was first to report on the letter to the FBI.

The July ransomware incident at the IT firm, Kaseya, rippled across the firm’s customer base of small and medium sized businesses as the hackers were able to breach about 50 of Kaseya’s clients and some 800 to 1,5000 customers of those clients.

An FBI spokesperson said the bureau received the letter and referred CNN to Wray’s recent congressional testimony.

In testimony last week in the Senate, Wray…

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