Tag Archive for: sparks

Death of Uttar Pradesh’s gangster ‘godfather’ sparks concerns about public safety


New Delhi, India(CNN) The brazen assassination of a former Indian lawmaker and his brother in front of live television cameras while under police custody has sparked renewed anger over the blurred lines between politics and crime in the country’s most populous state.

With more than 240 million people, Uttar Pradesh’s population is larger than most countries, yet the state has long been one of India’s poorest, held back by a reputation for corruption and organized crime.

But what took place on Saturday was especially shocking and has transfixed much of India.

Atiq Ahmed, a former lawmaker and convicted criminal, was gunned down alongside his brother Ashraf at point blank range by at least one gunman who posed as a journalist in an incident that was broadcast live.

A former Samajwadi Party member of India’s parliament, Atiq was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to life in prison last month following a long dual career as both a politician and a mainstay of Uttar Pradesh’s criminal underworld.

Police officers escort Atiq Ahmed outside a court in Prayagraj, India, April 13, 2023, two days before he was assassinated alongside his brother

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A hacking slugfest between Iran and its foes sparks fears of a wider cyberwar


A man fills his car with petrol at a gas station in the Iranian capital Tehran, October 27, 2021.

Gas stations across Iran were hit by a cyberattack in October that disabled thousands of pumps and upset motorists. (Atta Kenare / AFP/Getty Images)

For four days in early December, Iran’s top university ground to a halt. Web-conferencing software for COVID-constrained classes didn’t work. Faculty and students couldn’t access their records.

It was the latest round of attack in the low-level but escalating cyberhostilities between Iran and its adversaries, especially Israel, which have exchanged tit-for-tat hacks in a long-running shadow campaign of mutual destabilization. But the hit on the University of Tehran and other incidents like it represent a shift, experts say, from the regular targeting of military and nuclear sites toward a full-fledged cyberwar on civilian infrastructure.

“That’s an important distinction about cyberconflicts — they generally affect civilians and get the private sector,” said John Hultquist, vice president of intelligence analysis at the U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant.

“They’re not about military objectives. … The government is often not the audience for a lot of these incidents.”

The expansion of the Middle East cyberbattlefield comes as Iran improves defense of its controversial nuclear program, said Maysam Behravesh, a research associate at the Netherlands-based Clingendael institute who was an intelligence analyst and foreign policy advisor for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security from 2008 to 2010.

“Given that Iran’s nuclear facilities have spread all over the country and attacking the program has become much more complicated, Israel has adopted a new approach — conducting massive cyberattacks on sensitive civilian targets like dams, gasoline stations and power plants to foment nationwide riots with the objective of toppling the regime or keeping the rulers busy with day-to-day, endless riots,” Behravesh said.

Besides the University of Tehran attack earlier this month, Iran’s second-largest airline, Mahan Airlines, got hacked in November, its website made inaccessible. A large-scale hack in October disabled pumps at 4,300 gas stations across the country.

In August, a hacker group called Edalat-e…

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The Cybersecurity 202: The Colonial Pipeline hack sparks concerns about economic security


Items included $20 billion to help state, local, tribal and territorial governments modernize their energy systems to improve cybersecurity. The plan also earmarks $2 billion to support grid resilience, including cybersecurity defenses, in areas with high risk of power outages, critical infrastructure, and front-line communities.

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The Colonial Pipeline hack sparks concerns about economic security


with Aaron Schaffer

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Top members of the House Homeland Security Committee say the Biden administration needs to produce a plan to secure the economy in the wake of a major cyberattack.

Lawmakers argue the recent hack of the Colonial Pipeline, which provides 45 percent of the fuel for the East Coast and forced the company to shut down operations for nearly a week, highlights the critical nature of such a plan.

Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), the ranking Republican on Homeland Security, and Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), want the Biden administration to implement a strategy for ensuring the continuous operation of critical economic functions in the event of a significant cyber disruption. The power to do so was approved in last year’s defense authorization bill, but has not been put in place.

Last week, we witnessed the exact reason this provision was enacted into law and why we supported it. The question now becomes one of implementation, Katko and Thompson wrote in a letter to President Biden. In the wake of the Colonial ransomware attack and its cascading effects along a large portion of the United States, we believe the Administration should act expeditiously to use this authority to ensure the resiliency of the economy.” 

The administration has taken a number of steps to address cybersecurity in light of recent emergencies.

Biden last week signed an executive order outlining more rigorous cybersecurity requirements for software providers that contract with the federal government. The administration has also launched a series of 100-day initiatives to improve cybersecurity in critical infrastructure, including the electric grid and oil and gas pipelines.

While the efforts have received broad support in Congress, Katko and Thompson say they’re not a substitute for an emergency strategy.

While thankfully Colonial has begun the process to restore operations, the incident highlights the criticality and interdependencies of our nation’s critical infrastructure, they wrote. We as a nation can and must do more.

The letter requests a briefing from the White House about its plans. The White House declined to comment.

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