The latest coverage of the Department of Homeland Security and cyber threats around the globe.
By Victor Morton - The Washington Times
U.S. government investigators were wiretapping the head of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, both before and after the election, CNN reported Monday night. Published September 18, 2017
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's spokesman said Thursday that federal investigators' moves to wiretap him in 2014 and again in 2016, around the time he was involved with the campaign, were politically motivated.
The D.C. Court of Appeals found that District police violated a man's constitutional rights by using cellphone surveillance technology to track his location without a warrant, reversing his robbery and sexual-assault convictions.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill were demanding answers Thursday as the Securities and Exchange Commission tried to assess the damage after admitting the hackers breached its database of public company filings last year and potentially used that knowledge for insider stock trades.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said Monday that there may be evidence various voting machines were targeted in the 2016 election.
Sen. David Perdue said Monday that President Trump will build part of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
President Trump said Friday that the travel ban into the U.S. should be "tougher" in the wake of another terrorist attack in London.
Russia likely interfered in last year's U.S presidential election, according to former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, but the American public deserves to see evidence of its involvement, he said in an interview published Wednesday.
The Federal Trade Commission is the latest government agency being asked to investigate the recent Equifax breach after receiving a formal request Wednesday from Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has filed notice of her intent to sue the credit reporting company Equifax after the company announced 143 million Americans had their information exposed - including Social Security numbers, birthdates and address histories.
President Trump observed his first 9/11 anniversary as commander in chief Monday by vowing to pursue radical Islamic terrorists into the darkest corners of the world, underscoring his plans to send potentially thousands more troops to Afghanistan in the hope of stabilizing the country that served as the launchpad for al Qaeda's attack.
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump led a moment of silence Monday on the South Lawn of the White House in observance of the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Monday that Sept. 11, 2001, isn't part of history yet.
Rep. Michael McCaul said Monday that he doesn't think a terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, could happen today.
When we hear the president talk about the need for increased U.S. border security, we usually think of illegal immigration. But there is another crucial aspect to protecting our borders the president is working to address — the influx of illegal goods from foreign countries streaming across our borders — goods that threaten our domestic manufacturing industry, delay job growth and undermine our national security.
Eleven months after the 2016 presidential vote, top election officials in the states say they still can't determine the level of Russian hacking in their electoral systems in part because they lack the security clearances to discuss the issue with the Department of Homeland Security.
A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration's limited view of who is allowed into the U.S. under the president's travel ban.
Homeland Security awarded four contracts Thursday to build prototypes of a non-concrete border wall on the U.S.-Mexico boundary, rounding out the finalists for President Trump's signature campaign promise.
A sophisticated hacker group has successfully penetrated dozens of utility companies responsible for supplying power in countries including the U.S., Turkey and Switzerland, a renowned cybersecurity firm warns in a new report.
There have been more than 100 cyber attacks on power plants around the world this year, with over half of them in the United States. This is a very serious threat.
When it comes to cybersecurity, the U.S. is stuck in its own "Groundhog Day." But a happy ending may not be in the cards. Unlike the weatherman, it's not clear that we are learning from the past.
The administration has selected four companies to begin building prototypes for President Trump's border wall plans, announcing the decision Thursday in what officials said was the "first tangible result" of months of planning for the wall.
The leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have pressed the heads of five federal agencies for information on their cybersecurity priorities as mandated in an executive order signed by President Trump.
Instagram has alerted its most popular account holders after a software bug resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of users' phone numbers and email addresses.
Individuals attempting to load the official WikiLeaks website Thursday morning were greeted instead by a message attributed to OurMine, a hacking outfit previously linked to recent cyberattacks suffered by victims including BuzzFeed and HBO.
The scope of Wells Fargo's fake accounts scandal grew significantly on Thursday, with the bank now saying that 3.5 million accounts were potentially opened without customers' permission between 2009 and 2016.
An Israeli legal group is putting pressure on Cloudflare to stop doing business with terrorist groups, questioning why the web company was quick to oust a white supremacist website but still hosts accounts linked to Hamas.
President Trump's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser on Sunday said the pardon of former sheriff Joe Arpaio is "pretty straightforward."
Border Patrol agents uncovered a tunnel in San Diego early Saturday that they said was used to smuggle illegal immigrants across the border -- a rare tactic that suggests the cartels that control illicit traffic from Mexico to the U.S. are searching for new methods.
A judge ruled Thursday that web hosting company DreamHost must turn over data from an Inauguration Day protest website to federal prosecutors looking to find evidence against people charged with rioting during the event.
President Trump isn't doing any better than his predecessor in terms of outlining a plan for safeguarding the nation from cyberattack, Sen. John McCain said Wednesday.
The Trump administration has triggered visa sanctions against four countries that have refused to take back citizens the U.S. is trying to deport — tapping a little-used but very effective tool for forcing compliance.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Tuesday that Afghanistan and Pakistan weren't on the travel ban list because the government knew how to monitor people coming in and out of those countries.
A federal judge expressed skepticism Monday over how the State Department has been carrying out President Trump's travel ban, saying she thinks the government is "running out the clock" on perhaps more than 100 immigrants who could be shut out when their chance for visas expires in little more than a month.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has joined a group of 116 founders of robotics and artificial intelligence companies in signing an open letter urging the United Nations to ban autonomous weapons.
The Border Patrol busted a 25-year-old man on drug-smuggling charges earlier this month after agents accused him of picking up a load of methamphetamine that smugglers flew over the border with a drone.
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange told Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, that his antisecrecy website wants a regular seat in the White House press room, according to the congressman.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, has called for conducting a "massive cyberattack" against North Korea to prevent Pyongyang from initiating nuclear war.
Used by terrorists, drug dealers and money launderers, the shadowy online currency bitcoin may soon be drafted by the Pentagon as a way to shield U.S. military technology, communications and purchases.
HBO says it has regained control of its social media accounts after the latest security breach to hit the entertainment company.
Twitter and Cloudflare have followed in the footsteps of fellow internet titans GoDaddy, Google and Facebook by taking action against the Daily Stormer, a white supremacist website that's been all but driven offline after mocking the woman killed while protesting a white nationalist rally this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Trump administration has asked a California-based hosting provider to give the government information on anyone who visited disruptj20.org, a website that coordinated Election Day protests, prompting pushback over First Amendment concerns.
That so many of the nation's leading Democrats believe President Trump poses a greater threat to world peace than the mad dog leader of a nuclearized North Korea says more about them than either the president or Kim Jong-un.
The Hillary Clinton email fiasco isn't ending anytime soon, with State Department officials saying they have no idea when they will finish sorting though and releasing the previously hidden messages.
Marcel Lehel Lazar, the computer hacker known as "Guccifer" who first exposed Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state, said he'll fight against being extradited from his native Romania to the United States next year to serve the remainder of a 52-month prison sentence for hacking a handful of high-profile American politicos.
Homeland Security paid for polygraph exams for more than 2,300 potential hires at Customs and Border Protection even though they'd already admitted to drug use or criminal behavior that would have disqualified them anyway, the department's inspector general said in a new report this week.
The value of the shadowy digital currency known as bitcoin has jumped to record highs this month, sending shock waves through America's defense and intelligence agencies, which fear its growth signals a surge in use by terrorists, drug kingpins, white-collar criminals and Russian cybercriminals who don't want to be tracked by the world's governments.
Hackers responsible for stealing 1.5 terabytes of data from HBO have leaked an email from the network that shows that HBO made a "bug bounty" offer of $250,000, which the hackers rejected.
A former FBI special agent-turned disinformation expert says a propaganda tracking tool he helped develop took less than a week to pinpoint evidence of Kremlin efforts to exploit current White House political divisions at the highest levels of national security.
The FBI identified and nabbed a suspected cybercriminal who maintained anonymity for more than a year and a half by sending him a booby-trapped video file, federal prosecutors explained in newly unsealed court filings.
A group of hackers posted a fresh cache of stolen HBO files online Monday, and demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom from the network to prevent the release of entire television series and other sensitive proprietary files.
A bipartisan group of senators are calling on Congress to adopt security standards for for internet-connected devices bought by the government in a bid to further secure the nation's computer systems from cyberattacks.
The first sign that the world had been afflicted by one of the worst cyberattacks in history came in a relatively innocent message: "Oops, your important files are encrypted." It almost sounds accidental; it was not. The attack began on the morning of June 27 in Ukraine and quickly spread across the globe, infecting systems in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, United Kingdom, Australia and the United States.
Robert Mueller's appointment as special counsel of the Russia election interference probe presents an opportunity for the FBI to inspect the Democratic Party computers that U.S. intelligence concluded were penetrated by Kremlin-directed hackers, cybersecurity analysts say.
Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has fired an information technology staffer following his arrest on a bank fraud charge at a Virginia airport where he was attempting to fly to Pakistan.
The White House offered support Tuesday for the Federal Communications Commission's proposal to roll back Obama-era net neutrality internet rules.
After months of delay, the Trump administration is finalizing plans to revamp the nation's military command for defensive and offensive cyber operations in hopes of intensifying America's ability to wage cyberwar against the Islamic State group and other foes, according to U.S. officials.
Russia is preparing to retaliate against the United States for seizing two diplomatic compounds and expelling nearly three dozen Russian nationals late last year, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday, putting pressure on President Trump to reverse Obama-era sanctions imposed over Moscow's meddling in last year's election.
A federal judge took another swing at President Trump's travel ban late Thursday, ruling that the administration must expand the definition of family who are exempted from his policy -- and also dramatically expanding the number of refugees who can be admitted.
A Democratic bid to block the United States from establishing a cybersecurity alliance with Russia is gaining steam in Congress after President Trump discussed and then dismissed creating an "impenetrable" cybersecurity unit this week with his Kremlin counterpart.
Immigrant-rights groups sued the Homeland Security Department on Wednesday, claiming border officers are illegally stymieing desperate migrants' attempts to seek asylum in the U.S.
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.
