Cybersecurity

WASHINGTON — Just days before the Aug. 3 scheduled start of school, officials at the Athens Independent School District in East Texas received a shock. Cybercriminals had attacked the district’s entire computer network, encrypting all the data and demanding $50,000... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The FBI’s director acknowledged Thursday that the risks of terrorism and other attacks against the United States are evolving so fast that his agency has difficulty managing them. Cyberattackers threaten the next presidential election, COVID-19 vaccine development and... Read More

Groups from Russia, China and Iran have stepped up cyberattacks in an effort to disrupt the U.S. presidential election in November, a Microsoft Corp. investigation found. The groups have increased cyberattacks targeting the political campaigns of Democratic presidential nominee Joe... Read More

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Election officials across the country have a new tool to help them recognize and respond to malicious interference in the votes they oversee. Created by the Belfer Center at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, the new... Read More

WASHINGTON — Terrorism hasn’t disappeared just because a pandemic is happening. In fact, calamitous world conditions embolden those who want to do others harm, and police budget cuts, virus-related conspiracy theories, and other vulnerabilities are exacerbated during the COVID-19 crisis.... Read More

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials said they see little evidence of coordinated voter fraud or efforts by foreign adversaries to manipulate mail-in balloting ahead of the November election even as President Donald Trump repeatedly warns that the vote is at risk.... Read More

Election voting is the cybersecurity industry’s most difficult challenge, and casting ballots on paper is the safest option against any digital disruptions, says CrowdStrike Holdings co-founder and former Chief Technology Officer Dmitri Alperovitch. “Voting is the hardest thing to secure... Read More

ATLANTA (AP) — State and local officials are receiving additional tools from the federal government to help defend the nation’s election systems from cyberthreats ahead of the November vote, as intelligence officials continue to warn about foreign efforts to interfere in the... Read More

WASHINGTON - China, Russia and Iran are continuing to try to disrupt political campaigns and the 2020 general election, posing "a direct threat to the fabric of our Democracy," the nation's top counterintelligence official said Friday. William Evanina, director of... Read More

As Twitter Inc. grapples with the worst security breach in its 14-year history, it must now uncover whether its employees were victims of sophisticated phishing schemes or if they deliberately allowed hackers to access high-profile accounts. On Wednesday, some of... Read More

WASHINGTON - Democrats and Republicans agreed Wednesday during a congressional hearing that the U.S. government needs a more proactive strategy for protecting against cyberattacks but disagreed how to accomplish it. Democrats want a new agency to address cyberthreats while Republicans... Read More

Huawei Technologies Co. will be banned from providing equipment for the U.K.’s next generation mobile networks from the end of this year, in a sweeping crackdown on the Chinese company that risks escalating tensions between London and Beijing. Under the... Read More

WASHINGTON — In early 2017 the Central Intelligence Agency suffered a massive data loss when an agency employee stole vast quantities of information including some of its most secretive hacking tools because of lax cybersecurity measures, according to a redacted... Read More

WASHINGTON — In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, staffers at the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District in Illinois got an unwelcome surprise when they arrived at work one morning last month: Cybercriminals had hijacked their computer network and were holding... Read More

WASHINGTON — Cash-strapped states, which Congress just pumped $150 billion into, will nonetheless have to pony up in order to access new election security grants in the massive new coronavirus aid package signed by President Donald Trump. The $2.3 trillion... Read More

WASHINGTON — From disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker in Missouri to a convenience store operator in New Jersey, suspected fraudsters are trying to take advantage of the coronavirus panic to trick consumers into buying useless or harmful products, triggering state anti-gouging... Read More

WASHINGTON — An email seemingly from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns of new coronavirus infections and urges readers to click on a link to see a list of infections in their community. But the email actually... Read More

WASHINGTON — When cybercriminals struck Lake City, Fla., last June, city officials had to make a tough choice: Pay the hackers or restore systems on their own. A ransomware attack had hijacked the government’s computer network and held it hostage... Read More

LONDON — Julian Assange’s lawyers told a London court that they will provide evidence that U.S. President Donald Trump was prepared to offer the WikiLeaks founder a pardon if he “played ball” about leaks of Democratic National Committee emails. At... Read More

MIAMI — Less than five weeks before Florida’s March presidential primary, the Department of Homeland Security is investigating a previously unreported cyber attack on Palm Beach County’s elections office, according to Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link. Link, who was... Read More

WASHINGTON - Seven House members have come together in a bipartisan effort to help state and local governments address cybersecurity weaknesses in their networks. The lawmakers engaged in the effort are Reps. Cedric Richmond, D-La., John Katko, R-N.Y., Derek Kilmer,... Read More

WASHINGTON — When the computers of the city of Lodi, Calif., got hit by a ransomware attack last April, the strike disabled phone lines, forced police officers to write reports by hand and prevented workers from sending out utility bills.... Read More

TEHRAN, Iran — When Iranian authorities recently imposed a near-total internet blackout for almost a week to help quell massive street protests, U.S.-based tech entrepreneur Nima Fatemi bolted into action. Fatemi and other security experts have been finding ways around... Read More

WASHINGTON — The U.S. unveiled criminal charges and sanctions against members of a hacking group that calls itself Evil Corp, which authorities blame for some of the worst computer hacking and bank fraud schemes of the past decade. The Justice... Read More

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Secretary of State’s office was the subject of a thwarted foreign cyberattack on Election Day. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Tuesday that the so-called “SQL injection” attack was detected by the state’s internal... Read More

WASHINGTON — A Russia-linked group is believed to have utilized Iranian tools to conduct cyber attacks against dozens of countries, in an apparent effort to mask their identities, according to joint advisories by the U.S. and the U.K. The group,... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bill introduced Tuesday by the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security would establish a bipartisan commission of non-government experts to examine the ways social media and other online platforms have been exploited to promote and... Read More

Intellectual property policies could get a major court test this year as a real estate services company appeals a massive $706 million judgment that it stole trade secrets from a San Francisco-headquartered REtech company. At the dispute’s onset, the jury... Read More

WASHINGTON - Earlier this month, freshman Rep. Jason Crow, D-Col., had the pleasure of seeing one of his first pieces of legislation passed unanimously in the House by a voice vote. Crow’s SBA Cyber Awareness Act requires the Small Business... Read More

Capital One said Monday that the data of 100 million U.S. customers was illegally accessed in a breach that federal prosecutors said was perpetrated by a Seattle woman who allegedly hacked the bank’s server at a cloud-computing company. Six million... Read More