The latest coverage of the Department of Homeland Security and cyber threats around the globe.
By Andrew Blake - The Washington Times
Roger Thomas Clark, a Canadian man accused of helping run the groundbreaking Silk Road online drug bazaar shuttered by the FBI in 2013, has been extradited to the United States more than 2.5 years after being arrested in Thailand, the Department of Justice announced Friday. Published June 15, 2018
Before D-Day, Gen. George Patton commanded an army that didn't exist. His First U.S. Army Group was supposedly training around East Anglia. It featured phony tanks so German spy planes could report on them. It kept up a steady stream of radio traffic so German spies could track the movements of troops. And it featured divisions that seemed to be preparing to invade Calais.
Gal Vallerius, a French national arrested by U.S. authorities en route to last year's annual World Beard and Moustache Championships, pleaded guilty Tuesday to counts of narcotics trafficking and money laundering related to his involvement in running Dream Market, a site on the dark web that lets users buy and sell contraband ranging from heroin to hacking tools.
World Cup attendees of all sorts risk having their personal data compromised by hackers, state-sponsored or otherwise, the head of the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center warned ahead of the annual soccer tournament starting in Russia this week.
A pair of Democratic senators has asked the Federal Communications Commission for further details about the supposed cyberattacks blamed with disrupting access to the FCC website in 2014 and 2017 as reports cast doubt on whether the hacks ever happened.
Yahoo was fined Tuesday by British regulators over the colossal 2014 data breach that compromised the personal information of roughly 500 million user accounts.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai touted a return to past policies Monday morning as net neutrality regulations end.
Russian hackers and organizations like WikiLeaks are targeted in an annual defense spending bill unveiled by the Senate Armed Service Committee on Wednesday, as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle aim to use next year's military budget to address the election meddling that marred the 2016 U.S. presidential race.
President Donald Trump on Thursday urged the Department of Justice not to accept a plea agreement from a former IT aide to congressional Democrats who is being prosecuted in a scheme to fraudulently obtain home equity loans.
Atlanta anticipates spending another $9.5 million to recover from the ransomware virus that infected city computers in late March and disrupted government services for several weeks, a top local official said Wednesday.
Caving to pressure from President Trump, the Commerce Department announced Thursday that it will scrap massive sanctions against Chinese company ZTE and instead allow the telecommunications giant to get off with a $1 billion fine and stricter oversight.
Chinese phone maker Huawei, a firm flagged by U.S. intelligence officials as a national security threat, on Wednesday said it neither collected nor stored user data Facebook provided as part of a partnership with the social media giant.
Marcus Hutchins, a British cybersecurity researcher awaiting trial in the U.S. for felony hacking charges, was named in a superseding indictment Tuesday with new counts including lying to investigators.
Social media giant Facebook is under fire for sharing data with four Chinese electronics companies that critics say pose security and privacy risks for Americans' data.
Lawmakers on Wednesday lashed out at Facebook in the wake of recent revelations that the social media giant appeared to hide data-sharing partnerships with Chinese firms that U.S. intelligence officials have flagged as security threats.
Pamela Anderson defended her friend, Julian Assange, on Tucker Carlson's show last night.
The New York Times reports that Facebook has acknowledged it shared user data with several Chinese handset manufacturers, including Huawei, a company flagged by U.S. intelligence officials as a national security threat.
Ecuador's foreign minister on Monday defended suspending Julian Assange's internet access more than two months since stripping the WikiLeaks publisher and longtime guest of the Ecuadorean Embassy of his online privileges.
Candidates won't be the only ones sweating the vote as California and six other states hold primaries Tuesday, as election security officials say they are bracing to see how their systems hold up against an expected wave of cyberattacks.
Washington's trade war threats to China have only strengthened Beijing's high-tech ambitions, but a culture of bureaucracy could easily smother efforts to become the world's innovation hub, according to a leading China opinion maker.
A D.C. federal court judge on Wednesday dismissed a pair of lawsuits filed by Russian antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab over rules prohibiting the U.S. government from using its products.
John R. Bolton, President Trump's national security adviser, was challenged Wednesday by 19 senators, all Democrats, over his decision to recommend the elimination of the role of cybersecurity coordinator, the White House's top cyber policy position.
Papua New Guinea plans to temporarily block Facebook so that federal researchers can study the social network and identify users accused of violating the nation's internet laws, a top government official said Tuesday.
Facebook on Thursday introduced new transparency rules for paid political advertisements as part of its efforts to protect election integrity in the wake of Russians exploiting its platform during the 2016 U.S. presidential race.
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange received praise Wednesday from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, during an interview in which the congressman recalled their meeting last summer inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
The Defense Department this week stiffened its policy on cellphone use inside the Pentagon but stopped short of the complete ban that had been under consideration and which would've marked a major day-to-day change for the tens of thousands of employees who work inside the sprawling facility.
A Federal Aviation Administration employee had 17 images of suspected child pornography on his taxpayer-funded work computer, yet the government allowed him to keep his job and ordered him to attend after-hours counseling on appropriate computer use.
The Federal Communications Commission is facing bipartisan pressure to investigate how potentially millions of bogus comments were filed for and against the agency's repeal of neutrality protections.
Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin on Monday encouraged the Department of Justice to review the power that America's massive tech firms, such as Google, have over the U.S. economy.
It's not hard to imagine the role that energy plays in our daily lives — in fact it becomes immediately apparent when we experience even a brief power outage in our home or workplace. Quite simply, it stops us in our tracks.
House Democrats on Thursday released a letter urging President Trump to reinstate the role of White House cybersecurity coordinator, a top policy adviser position eliminated by his administration earlier this week.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will discuss the social network's data policies before members of the European Parliament, albeit behind closed doors, unlike his appearances in the U.S. House and Senate.
Sen. John Kennedy said Wednesday that plans to ask Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie what the company did behind the scenes, but said from what he knows, it doesn't seem much different than what social media companies do.
The Department of Justice launched an investigation into the data company Cambridge Analytica, according to a New York Times report on Tuesday.
Smuggling cartels are making at least $500 million a year bringing migrants into the U.S., Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Congress on Tuesday, outlining the scope of the problem for lawmakers as illegal border crossings continue to surge.
Iranian hackers ramped up their attacks against U.S. targets as expected in the immediate aftermath of President Trump withdrawing this week from the Iran nuclear deal, cybersecurity experts said afterwards.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has set its sights on former Trump election campaign aide Sam Nunberg as part of its probe into Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, taking particular interest in his contacts with fellow Republican consultant Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to President Trump.
Sarah Palin on Thursday expressed her appreciation for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, notwithstanding his website releasing the Republican politician's personal emails nearly a decade earlier during her failed campaign for vice president.
Bipartisan lawmakers have introduced a bill forbidding the federal government from requiring that tech companies build so-called "backdoors" into their products designed to let authorities defeat encryption.
Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Friday that members of Congress missed an opportunity during Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's hearing.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said he has never seriously considered leaving his post and his only regret is not arriving sooner, according to an NPR interview late Thursday.
Alexa, how do we get competition? When Democrats rule D.C., you have to hand it to them. They know how to take care of their fellow Democrats. When Republicans rule D.C., they take care of the Democrats, too.
A federal judge ruled Thursday that a legal challenge to the government's border-search policy can move forward, saying border inspectors' policy of confiscating and poring over some travelers' cellphones may violate the First and Fourth Amendments.
Democrats have endorsed doing more to respond to Russia's offensive cyber activities after new reporting linked a suspected state-sponsored hacking group to a false-flag attack waged against the wives of U.S. military personnel.
The federal government has purged its computers of Kaspersky Lab products, a Democratic senator revealed Tuesday, but contractors and other third-party providers are still ridding their systems of the Russian company's software and services, the head of the Department of Homeland Security added.
The Senate Intelligence committee has concluded that Kremlin-supported operatives targeted elections of at least 21 states in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to the first report in the panel's yearlong probe.
The FBI received a record number of complaints in 2017 from individuals reporting online crimes, the bureau revealed in a new report published Monday.
Congressional action may be required to resolve the "going dark" dilemma posed by law enforcement's growing inability to easily access digital evidence from encrypted devices, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday.
First lady Melania Trump rolled out an agenda Monday that focused on enhancing the well-being of children, soldiering on in her duties against one of the Washington press corps' most hostile receptions for a first lady and rabid news coverage of the president's alleged infidelity with adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
The Trump administration said Monday it will now pursue criminal charges against every migrant nabbed jumping the U.S.-Mexico border, putting serious teeth behind President Trump's goal of stiffening immigration enforcement.
Democrats on the House Intelligence committee are preparing to publicly release 3,000 Facebook ads which Kremlin operatives created as part of an effort to spread propaganda across social media during the 2016 election.
Political ads on Google must now be bought by someone showing verification that they are a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, the firm announced on Friday.
Before President Barack Obama left office, he admitted that the P5+1 deal with Iran could in time provide enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon. In other words, this deal was not designed to prevent weapons of mass destruction in Iran, but to delay the "inevitable."
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg recently took the hot seat on Capitol Hill for two days of grilling following news about Cambridge Analytica's use of stolen data to profile and target American voters. Facebook also faces criticism about its privacy policies and data collection.
Security researchers in Tennessee are investigating an incident described as potentially the first election-related cyberattack of 2018.
The Pentagon has prohibited the sale of Huawei and ZTE phones on U.S military bases worldwide, taking aim at two of China's most prominent technology firms as concerns swell over the potential national security risks posed by their products.
The Czech Republic's high court has ruled against a Russian man who argued that Prague should have granted him asylum instead of extraditing him to the United States to face federal hacking charges related to allegedly breaching American internet companies.
Cambridge Analytica, the British "data-mining" firm at the center of Facebook's user privacy scandal, is shutting down as clients flee and contracts collapse, the company announced Wednesday.
The arrival of former Republican Sen. Jon Kyl to advise Facebook on political bias comes not a moment too soon for conservatives struggling to maintain a foothold on social media amid charges of politically motivated purges.
The growing race for military superiority between Washington and Beijing is entering a new phase, with both world powers preparing to square off in the cutting-edge realm of artificial intelligence.
California state Sen. Richard Pan, Sacramento Democrat, said his re-election campaign was scammed out of $46,000 as the result of a "sophisticated" cybercrime scheme.
Global terrorism is spreading like a dangerous cancer that knows no borders. It cannot be defeated by the military alone. As the Islamic State's grip on Mosul is faltering today, so must its grip on the young minds of Iraq through instruction in religious freedom and reconciliation.
Russia's intelligence service hacks Democratic Party computer networks and puts out stolen emails in a bid to influence the 2016 election. China says it owns 90 percent of the South China Sea and begins building military bases under a vague historical claim to the strategic waterway. Iranian hackers break into American banks and a water control computer network at an upstate New York dam. Welcome to the new form of conflict in the 21st century: information warfare.
The Hawaii federal court's recent nationwide block of President Trump's new executive order on immigration is troubling. The court's decision turns on its head the important requirement that persons have legitimate "standing" to invoke the power of the federal courts.
Two of the government's highest ranking intelligence officials will go before a House committee next week to testify about President Trump's bombastic claim that his predecessor "tapped" his phones during the 2016 election.
President Trump and the lower federal courts are playing a dangerous game of ping-pong, and the nation's security is paying for it. The president, who is responsible for the nation's safety, proposes and certain federal judges, who have no such responsibility dispose. The president proposes again, and again a judge or two dispose.
These people who traveled to Syria to join and support an army of psychopathic mass murderers, will simply be "tracked" once they get back on our soil.
Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly officially revoked President Obama's 2014 attempt to broaden his previous deportation amnesty for Dreamers, which had been held up by federal courts for more than two years.
Homeland Security added dozens of jurisdictions to its latest name-and-shame list of sanctuary cities, released Wednesday, including Baltimore, where the police commissioner has said officers would not work with federal agents to enforce immigration laws.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said he hopes President Trump's pledged wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is completed within two years.
Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab in 2012 was among the first Iraqi refugees to enter the U.S. after President Obama lifted a six-month freeze on such entries as his aides tightened a shaky vetting process.
A confidential government report says terrorist groups such as the Islamic State have all but abandoned trying to put together huge plots such as the Sept. 11 attacks and warns counterterrorism agencies of a "new landscape" where lone killers strike and massacre quickly thanks to the digital age.
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday touted a new testimonial from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that Russia was not the source behind the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta email hacks during the campaign.
Law enforcement agencies have arrested nine Northern Virginia residents on charges of aiding the Islamic State since the terrorist group rose to power in Syria and Iraq in 2014 and launched social media propaganda to attract followers, a government message to police states.
The FBI believed Huma Abedin's laptop computer did have evidence she and her boss, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, mishandled classified information, according to a search warrant released Tuesday that shows the basis agents had for upending the presidential election with their controversial election-season probe.
Included among the more than 1 billion Yahoo accounts compromised by a 2013 security breach disclosed Wednesday were those of at least 150,000 U.S. government and military employees, according to a researcher who first discovered the stolen data being sold online.
Hillary Clinton's top adviser said the FBI is investigating Russia's possible role in hacking thousands of his personal emails, an intrusion he said Donald Trump's campaign may have been aware of in advance.
Yahoo confirmed Thursday the credentials of more than 500 million account holders have been compromised by hackers.
Foreign hacking into U.S. voter databases shouldn't affect the outcome of the presidential election because the patchwork of state voting systems is too fragmented to be rigged, the White House said Tuesday.
The Obama administration acknowledged Monday that the FBI found at least 14,900 more email messages former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton never turned over to the government, and officials are facing intense pressure to release them ahead of November's election.
Hillary Clinton still insisted Sunday that she never sent classified material on her private account when she was secretary of state.
The FBI warned the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in March that its computers had been the object of a foreign-government cyberattack, Yahoo News reported Thursday evening.
