Tag Archive for: warnings

FEC says Twitter acted legally in blocking Hunter Biden laptop stories, pointing to claim of intel warnings about hacking

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The Federal Elections Commission said on Wednesday its members unanimously rejected complaints from the Republican National Committee and others that Twitter’s decision to block the sharing of links to articles from the New York Post related to Hunter Biden’s laptop constituted an illegal contribution to now-President Joe Biden’s candidacy.

In announcing the decision, the FEC pointed to Twitter’s assertion that part of the reason it stopped the spread of the New York Post articles in October was over concerns that foreign actors obtained the salacious materials through hacking. The social media giant claimed the U.S. Intelligence Community was warning about such an effort in the lead-up to the 2020 election. No evidence has emerged that the Hunter Biden laptop story stemmed from a foreign hacking operation.

The FEC said there was a 6-0 vote in finding “no reason to believe” that Twitter violated the law “by making corporate in-kind contributions” and “no reason to believe” that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey or Brandon Borrman, who was Twitter vice president of global communications, broke the law.

In response to reporting on the decision published on Monday, RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said the group was “weighing its options for appealing this disappointing decision from the FEC.”

An October complaint  from the RNC alleged: “Through its ad hoc, partisan oppression of media critical of Biden, [Twitter] is making illegal, corporate in-kind contributions as it provides unheard-of media services for Joe Biden’s campaign.” The RNC argued at the time that Twitter was “doing so for the clear purpose of supporting the Biden campaign.”

Robert Kelner, a lawyer who had represented retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn before Sidney Powell took over his representation, helped represent Twitter in the FEC complaint, writing in December that “Twitter undertook, for bona fide commercial reasons” actions to block potentially hacked content.

A lengthy statement from Yoel Roth, head of site integrity for Twitter, was included in Kelner’s response.

“Since 2018, I have…

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OODA Loop – Labor Day Weekend Ransomware Warnings: U.S warns firms to be on guard against hostile network activity

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Developing countries sign Huawei deals despite US espionage warnings

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US warnings of espionage by Huawei are failing to dissuade governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America from hiring the Chinese tech group for cloud infrastructure and e-government services, a study has found.

The report by the Washington-based think-tank CSIS seen by the Financial Times identified 70 deals in 41 countries between Huawei and governments or state-owned enterprises for these services from 2006 to April this year.

Cloud infrastructure usually refers to the installation of data centres, while e-government mainly involves automating administrative functions such as licensing, healthcare, legal records and other government processes.

“Huawei’s cloud infrastructure and e-government services are handling sensitive data on citizens’ health, taxes, and legal records,” according to the study.

“As Huawei carves out a niche as a provider to governments and state-owned enterprises, it is building a strategic position that could provide Chinese authorities with valuable intelligence and even coercive leverage,” added the study.

Most of the countries involved in such deals with Huawei were in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, and 77 per cent of them fell into the categories of “not free” or “partly free”, as rated by Freedom House, a US government-funded democracy watchdog group.

“With a surge in deals announced since 2018, including several announcements during 2020, it is clear that warnings against Huawei’s security risks are not persuading decision makers in developing countries,” the CSIS report, authored by Jonathan Hillman and Maesea McCalpin, said.

“As a cloud infrastructure and service provider, Huawei doesn’t own or control any customer data,” Huawei said in a statement.

“All customer data is owned and fully controlled by our customers.”

“Cyber security and user privacy protection remain Huawei’s top priorities,” the company added. 

The US has repeatedly accused Huawei of spying for the Chinese government, sometimes by exploiting telecoms “back doors” in its equipment. Washington has also placed Huawei and many of its affiliates on an “entity list”, restricting the sale of critical technologies such…

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Dutch Police post “say no to cybercrime” warnings on hacker forums

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Dutch Politie

The Dutch Police have begun posting warnings on Russian and English-speaking hacker forums not to commit cybercrime as law enforcement is watching their activity.

Since the conclusion of Operation LadyBird, law enforcement’s disruption of the Emotet botnet, the Dutch Police state that they are creating forum accounts on hacker forums to warn hackers that they are watching them publicly.

These forum posts include a message about the Emotet disruption and a YouTube video showing the botnet operators’ arrests. The video ends with the police warning that “Everyone makes mistakes. We are waiting for yours.”

So far, the Netherlands Police have posted on the English-speaking RaidForums and the Russian-speaking XSS forums. Included in the forum posts is a Telegram number that threat actors can use to share cybercrime information.

Netherlands Police post to RaidForums
Netherlands Police post to RaidForums
Source: BleepingComputer

The post to XSS contains the same message but this time in Russian.

XSS forum post
XSS forum post

The message posted by the Netherlands Police is repeated in full below:

On 26th January the Netherlands Police took over control of the Emotet botnet, dismantled the infrastructure and seized data on its users. Emotet was one of the most prolific botnets of the past decade. It ultimately failed to escape the reach of the Netherlands Police and its international partners. Hosting criminal infrastructure in The Netherlands is a lost cause.

Looking for another botnet? Think again.
[ Evidence: https://youtu.be/24srTBcbslo ]

The Netherlands Police will continue to focus on the abuse of our infrastructure. We aim at botnets and related malware like Ryuk, Trickbot and many more. We feed on underground information sources and the cybersecurity industry. We will leave no stone unturned in finding those committed to cybercrime. You might lose your liberty, not just your bots and business. As you know, the Netherlands Police is always the first to see next seasons catalogues.

International Law Enforcement continues to work collectively against cybercrime, wherever it is committed. Everyone makes mistakes. We are waiting for yours. Check where traders host their…

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