Our Adversaries Are Using Cyberwarfare. We Must Be Prepared.

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The recent incidents between U.S. and Iranian forces demonstrate the importance of cyberwarfare for national security and reinforce the importance of funding and developing the cyber capabilities of the United States.

Following the June attacks by Iran on oil tankers and then the downing of a U.S. unmanned drone, President Donald Trump chose not to retaliate with physical attacks. Instead, he reportedly approved an offensive cyberstrike that disabled the computer systems used to control Iran’s rocket and missile launches.

That was considered a more proportionate retaliation for the downing of the drone.

America’s adversaries are operating with cyber in the so-called gray zone between diplomacy and war, choosing actions that fall short of sparking a conventional military retaliation.

In 2007, Russia used cyber to disrupt communications channels in the Baltic states as part of its unconventional strategy to destabilize the region.

In 2015, China hacked the Office of Personnel Management and stole the records of employees holding security clearances. That’s in addition to ongoing theft of intellectual property.

North Korea used cyber against Sony in 2014, and Iran has targeted the U.S. government and companies with cyberattacks as well.

Given these threats, and the challenges of defending networks, offensive cyberattacks are an important tool for the U.S. against its adversaries.

In 2018, U.S. Cyber Command confirmed it had launched an offensive cyberattack in order to silence a Russian troll farm, an organization used to spread disinformation and sway public opinion during the 2018 U.S. midterm elections.

Sometimes, offense is the best defense.

The release of National Security Presidential Memorandum 13 in 2018 allows for offensive and defensive cyber operations to be conducted without presidential approval.

Last year, the Department of Defense also released a plan that confirmed its commitment to using cyberattacks “to advance U.S. interests” and “defend forward.” The U.S. retaliatory offensive cyberattacks on Iran and Russia are examples of this type of approach.

Unlike nuclear weapons, which are held in reserve and used to deter other nations through the threat of use, cyber capabilities are readily available, and cyber forces are in near-constant contact with one another.

While many cyberattacks seem immediate, as though a button was pushed to trigger it at will, most are actually the result of months of work and planning. Constant effort goes into identifying cyber targets and ensuring that there is still an ability to access them.

If the target updates its software, for example, that means an entirely new plan of attack must be laid out.

The organization primarily responsible for these missions is U.S. Cyber Command. It has come a long way from its humble origins, recently filling out its Cyber Mission Forces, the operational units within the command, to full operational capacity.

In 2018, it was promoted to a full unified combatant command. That designation made it equal in rank to the other nine combat commands, such as Special Operations and Central Command.

That’s not to suggest that Cyber Command does not have more work to do. It still needs to train those forces up to a high level of readiness and continue to develop its infrastructure. Fully staffed does not necessarily mean fully mission-ready and capable.

Cyber Command is constantly deterring, disrupting, and defeating cyberthreats. Its capabilities must be able to handle the persistent nature of cyberwarfare.

Just as we maintain our ships and improve our conventional military forces, we must do the same with our cyber capability. The U.S. should continue to develop Cyber Command’s capacity and readiness so it can meet those challenges into the future.

The United States cannot afford to rest on its current cyber capabilities. Our adversaries continue to sharpen their cyber forces, and the U.S. cannot afford to lose that competition.

We must stay ahead of our adversaries and continue to invest in the U.S. Cyber Command so it can reach its full potential.

COMMENTARY BY

Alexandra Marotta

Alexandra Marotta is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.

James Di Pane

James Di Pane is a research assistant in the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Comments by Computing Forever on President Trump’s Social Media Summit

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Computing Forever published the following video with commentary on President Trump’s Social Media Summit:

For those wishing to support Computing Forever’s work his please clicking here or on Subscribe Star or donate via PayPal. Like Computing Forever on Facebook.

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PODCAST: Techs and Balances

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The rest of the country knows it as the 2020 election. To the leaders at Google, it’s the “Trump situation.” And based on new undercover video, they’ll do anything to prevent this president’s history from repeating.

Americans knew there was a censorship problem at places like Google and Pinterest. Now, thanks to James O’Keefe and Project Veritas, they see just how bad it is. Turns out, platforms like this search engine aren’t in the browsing business — they’re in the political business. And not as an unbiased observer. In the footage released Monday, Jen Gennai, head of Google’s Responsible Innovation team, has been innovative all right — especially when it comes to trying to alter the president’s reelection chances.

“Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google,” Gennai was caught saying on tape. “And I love her, but she’s very misguided. That will not make it better, it will make it worse, because now all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation.” And according to the footage, those resources have been hard at work since 2016 “to make sure that we are ready for 2020.”

To conservatives like Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the surprise is not that companies like Google are trying to interfere with the election. The surprise is that they’re being so candid about it. There’s plenty of evidence from three years ago, he told me on “Washington Watch” that the search engine had rigged their algorithms to favor Hillary Clinton results over Donald Trump’s. But here’s the scary thing, he said. “More and more voters, especially undecided voters, get their news from Google search right? So this platform with its monopoly power has the ability to swing undecided voter could potentially swing an election… [T]his is something that we should all be concerned about.”

It’s time to take seriously what liberals in Big Tech are doing, he insisted — “let alone what they’re doing that we don’t know about.” After all, “we’re talking about democracy. I mean, “You’ve got Google executives and Google employees saying, ‘We want to manipulate the information that goes to voters, so that they will vote the way that we Google want them to vote. That’s not democracy. That’s not the rule of the people. That’s rule by this multinational corporation.”

If people were unconvinced about these leaders’ motivations before, Project Veritas is making believers out of more every day. This morning, most of us woke up to the headlines that one leaked Google document compared conservatives like Ben Shapiro, PragerU, and others to “Nazis using dog whistles.” And just as O’Keefe’s post was approaching a million views, guess what? YouTube, which happens to be owned by Google, pulled it.

Here’s the thing, Senator Hawley told me. Google is a private company, and it can do what it wants. But it certainly shouldn’t be getting special deals and immunity from the federal government if they’re going to try to influence the outcome of an election or silence conservatives. Under his new bill, the Internet Censorship Act, major tech platforms would have to start being politically neutral toward what content they allow or disallow. If they want to keep operating under this unique status, they should have to submit to an audit that proves they aren’t discriminating against conservatives or the conservative viewpoint.

“And if Google doesn’t want to do that because they’re private company and they want to be out there as a progressive Left-wing company, that’s fine. But then they shouldn’t [get this special status from the] government…” And it’s not just Google, Senator Hawley explains. It’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and others too. Right now, he points out, “If Twitter takes away your account or Facebook takes down your post because they don’t like that it’s pro-life, there’s currently nothing you could do to Facebook or to Twitter. They have immunity from liability.” The traditional media, on the other hand, doesn’t. “Whether it’s television or newspapers or even online journalists… if they print stuff that’s not true, if they slander you, if they discriminate against you, you can sue them [to hold them] accountable.”

Every platform should be playing by the same rules. Either Google and the rest of Big Tech need to embrace the First Amendment and treat people fairly or they can wave goodbye to their cozy government deals.

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Cyber Security: Your Business May Be Under Attack

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With the cost of cybercrimes reaching as much as $2.2 trillion a year, it’s clear that we are in a pitched battle when it comes to protecting our data against cybercriminals. And before you write yourself off as a target unworthy of a hacker’s attention, the statistics paint a very different picture.

We tend to think of cybercrime in terms of big breaches that are splashed across the media. However, it’s not these big breaches that actually make the most money for criminals.

Research suggests that the average cost of ransomware attacks is around $679. This, admittedly, seems quite low. But if you think about it, keeping the ransoms low makes good financial sense for the criminals.

If their demands were too high, people would be more likely to write off the infected computer as a lost cause and replace it with a new machine. By keeping the ransom affordable, it’s easier for the person just to pay it to regain access.

That doesn’t mean that it’s not profitable for the hacker, though. In the first quarter of 2016 only, criminals earned $209 million from these kinds of attacks. It’s estimated that the average ransomware attacker will earn around $90,000 per annum, which is nothing to sniff at, especially since there is very little work involved here.

We’ve gotten to a point where companies can now take out insurance to cover them in the event of a cyber attack.
What is a Business’s Highest Area of Risk?

When it comes to cybersecurity, your staff pose the highest risk for any organization, whether through plain carelessness, design, or malice.

Careless Employees

If your employees are careless with security aspects, you are heading for trouble. This is where regular security training will pay dividends.

Few people realize how simple it is for an experienced hacker to glean enough information about a person online and make an educated guess about the passwords she may be using.

Also, 70% of people use the same passwords on social media as they do for their corporate logins. And while your company’s servers might be secure, social media is certainly not.

Employees need to be educated about choosing a good password, keeping it safe, and how to recognize a potential threat or suspicious request.

Employees With a Design to Make Extra Money

Criminal syndicates will often look for a way to get someone on the inside. This might mean planting someone in the organization if it is large enough, but it can also mean turning someone who is already working there.

As a result, employees’ actions on the computer system should be monitored to ensure that they’re not accessing systems they shouldn’t.

Malicious Employees

These are more difficult, because you may not know that they have a grudge against the company straight away. It’s good practice to revoke access to the systems as soon as an employee leaves.

Overall, the key to guarding your data against criminals is always to be mindful of security and ensuring that it is well-maintained.

Infographic URL: https://techjury.net/blog/cyber-security-statistics/

RELATED ARTICLE: Cybersecurity Statistics for 2020 – Trends, Insights, & More!

Microchips and Their Potential Influence on Gambling

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The cyberpunk era is approaching, and microchips are its heralds! These integrated circuits have been around for decades now, as farmers use them to track and identify animals. However, when it comes to human microchip implants, the burning questions arise: Is it safe? Is it ethical? Is it legal at all?

You may be surprised, but nowadays thousands of people are walking around with small chips embedded into their palms. The future is here, so let’s figure out how it can serve our needs.

Understanding the Case

According to Wikipedia, a human microchip implant is a tiny shelled device embedded into the body. These transmitter/responder devices store unique ID details or other sensitive data, and can interact with external computers such as transport or banking terminals, IoT devices, etc.

It might seem alarming, but think again. Body-inserted devices are way more widespread as they are often used in healthcare. Pacemakers, nerve stimulators, IUDs, artificial limbs, integrated hearing aids, even brain-computer interfaces – a lot of people are able to interact with the world thanks to this innovation.

Human Microchipping Reality

Today, microchips are no longer associated with sci-fi novels. The millimeter-sized gear is installed in your palm to turn it into a next-gen controller. Chips may cost you from $30 to $340, and are readily available thanks to biohacking firms. But, are they really so widespread?

  • The UK. As of 2018, BioTeq produced 150 human microchip implants. They are used to access offices and cars or to store medical data. Big firms also consider microchipping their employees to manage their work efficiently.
  • The USA. Patrick McMullan and his Three Square Market work on advanced RFID chips, which provide for higher security (for managing sensitive data) and accuracy (for pacemakers).
  • Sweden. The stats show that more than 4000 people in Sweden have already implanted microchips in their bodies. They use Biohax chips as unique passcodes or signatures to pay in shops and even travel with Swedish railways SJ.
  • Germany. Thousands of citizens use chips created by I am ROBOT as alternatives to their credit cards, keys, and data storages. Ultimately, these devices can be used to facilitate any task related to regular activity. 

The society grows suspicious about such implants as they can potentially track everything you do and leak this data. Physicians have doubts about the safety of human microchipping, while large enterprises are getting increasingly interested in the devices and consider using them for employees.

Pros and Cons of Human Microchipping

Still, it’s clear that microchips are here to stay, so it’s high time to understand how they can help us and what aspects to be aware of.

Advantages

  • Simple routine tasks. You can use a chip as a wallet, keys, controllers for various home devices, and so on. Nobody can steal it.
  • Smooth identification. Packed with all necessary ID info, a microchip is your passport, driver’s license, transport ticket, and even a signature for your gun.
  • Accessible medical records. Chips with unique codes grant access to medical databases, which accurately store all your health records.

Drawbacks

  • Potential health threats. Integrated circuits can harm your health in tons of ways – migrations of chips inside bodies, electrical hazards, MRI scans, and even cancer.
  • Constant oversight. You never actually know who can access your chip data and track it. GPS modules, for example, make it easy to find you even in the most crowded city.
  • Hacks. Finally, chips are hardware devices based on protocols, which can be hacked.

The Impact on Gamblers

Surprisingly, human microchips can facilitate gambling activities greatly. Read on to reveal how these high-tech devices help casino visitors and even online gamblers.

1. Interact with Casinos Easily

Although microchips are widely used for casino tokens, they are still new for casino visitors. Human chips will make the casino-player interaction more innovative. For instance, you will be able to use gestures to play games or communicate with real/virtual dealers. As well, it will be much easier to access casino accounts as microchips store all key login data.

2. Make Instant Purchases

Both offline and online casinos should benefit from microchipped gamblers because they will get another simple option to spend money. As microchips replace cash and credit cards, people could spend more money on gambling, because they would have no control over money flow. Although it might look as the best-case scenario for casino operators, gamblers can also benefit from innovation if they play responsibly. Microchips would allow for smooth transactions in no time.

3. Keep Your Data Safe

Last but not least, chips could become a valid alternative for other types of identification. With them, you can stop worrying about losing your ID card or leaking passwords to fraudsters. Most likely, the hackers of tomorrow will find new ways to break into chips’ protection systems, but it would be more difficult.

The Future Is Now

Microchips are here to stay. Probably, only a portion of people from Generation Z will have chips in their bodies in the near future, but their kids will certainly be implanted with such devices. With the increasing awareness and demand, more individuals will be reaping the benefits of small integrated circuits, just like the previous generations are getting used to computers, smartphones, and wearables. We can expect that microchips will penetrate into our daily life unless they are replaced with even more innovative stuff.

While the reviewed tech is wonderful and useful for various sectors, it’s vital to remember about safety. We mean both physical health and cybersecurity. Body-integrated chips are quite unusual now and the industry lacks general standards. The future is here, but it’s up to you to decide whether this future is appropriate.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Pixabay.

Iran waging ‘cyber warfare’ to ‘disrupt communication of dissidents’ and ‘promote terrorism’ worldwide

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A NEW wave of “cyber warfare” is using “mass surveillance” to “actively disrupt the communication of protesters and dissidents” in Iran and “promote terrorism” across the globe, an explosive document has claimed.

This is precisely why Islamic supremacists must never be appeased nor tolerated. They are fascist and expansionist, and while the abuse to which they subject their own people is atrocious enough,  these abuses do not stop at their borders.

“Revealed: How Iran wages ‘CYBER TERRORISM’ to secretly spy on MILLIONS and incite ‘CHAOS,’” by Sam Stevenson, Express, December 28, 2018:

A NEW wave of “cyber warfare” is using “mass surveillance” to “actively disrupt the communication of protesters and dissidents” in Iran and “promote terrorism” across the globe, an explosive document has claimed.

The paper was compiled by the official Iranian resistance movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). It makes damning assertions which implicate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in waging “cyber warfare to preserve the theocracy”. NCRI representative Hossein Abedini has spoken to Express.co.uk about his group’s findings.

Furious Iranians, making use of cyber technology to disseminate their message, have been part of a popular uprising that erupted in Tehran in December 2017.

But now the theocratic regime – led by Iran’s IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) – is using “cyber attacks” to suppress its people, the Iranian Resistance document seen by Express.co.uk claims.

It explains: “Millions of Iranians have access to the internet and more than 48 million own smartphones.

“Iran’s young and restless population has become increasingly ‘tech-savvy’ over the years to evade the regime’s controls and censorship.

“The continuous cyber resistance by the public has driven the regime to route internet traffic through one of the state-controlled systems, making it very difficult for any subscriber to evade state-sponsored cyber repression.”

The ominous paper argues the Iranian regime is among very few governments in the world where “its testbed of cyber attacks and strategies is its own citizens”.

It contends this approach is “in line with Tehran’s longstanding worldview of instilling fear and repression at home, while promoting terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism and chaos abroad”.

The document claims the regime uses malicious malware and spyware embedded within smartphone applications (apps) to “secretly spy” on its people….

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared on Jihad Watch. It is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Alireza Heydarifard on Unsplash.

Is Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) Planning to Blame the Russians When He Loses in November 2018? Looks like it!

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Florida Senator Bill Nelson unequivocally stated to the Tampa Bay Times,

“They [the Russians] have already penetrated certain counties in the state [of Florida] and they now have free rein to move about.”

Senator Nelson is up for reelection. Making such a statement demands proof in order to protect Florida’s voting systems. Attempts by various news outlets to get the proof have been fruitless.

Miami’s WPLG Local 10 released the following report on YouTube:

Senator Nelson, by his own admission, is vulnerable in Florida. Why would Nelson make such a statement then not at least provide information to Governor Scott and local election officials? Doesn’t Senator Nelson want Florida’s election systems to be safe from hacks by any foreign or domestic entity?

Is Senator Nelson planning to blame the Russians for the loss of his U.S. Senate seat, like the Democrats did in November 2016?

It sure looks like it.

RELATED ARTICLE: TRAPPED: Democrat Senator Bill Nelson Lied Or Released Classified Intel, Reports Suggest

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Senate Aging Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. listening on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014, during the committee’s hearing to examine older Americans and student loan debt. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)

VIDEO: The Awan Brothers/Democrat I.T. Scandal

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New reports have emerged that dozens of House Democrats waived the background checks on the Awan Brothers — the House I.T. aides handling their cybersecurity and with access to their email systems. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton went to Capitol Hill last year to help shine a spotlight on the ongoing Awan Brothers I.T. scandal in the House of Representatives that the mainstream media — and, sadly, even our Justice Department and much of Congress — are all ignoring.

This is a story that involves political corruption, alleged cybersecurity breaches, the potential sharing of private constituent info, possible large-scale fraud, cover-ups, and threats to our national security.

INFOGRAPHIC: 77 Facts About Cyber Crimes One Should Know in 2018

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WHAT ARE CYBERCRIMES?

The use of computers and modern telecommunication networks with the intention of causing a harm or loss to someone is known as cybercrime. They have been around ever since the creation of computers and have gained popularity since the beginning of the new millennium.

Even though it may sound unbelievable, the first ever form of crime against technology took place in 1820 in France, when Joseph-Maria Jacquard, a textile manufacturer, created the loom. It was a device which was able to repeat series of steps used in weaving. Afraid their employment was being threatened, the workers from his factory sabotaged the device in order to stop Jacquard from using technology.  However, today’s article is about crimes that affect the cyber technology only, not technology in general.

Fast forward 200 years and these crimes are at their peak. Cybercrimes have a huge effect on the global economy as they create a damage of more than 4 billion dollars, thus becoming the greatest threat to companies worldwide.

Malware, web based attacks, denial of services, malicious insiders, phishing and social engineering, malicious codes, compromised and stolen devices, ransomware, botnets, are the cyber attacks which created the biggest damage in 2017 with a combined cost of over $11.5 million.

Powerful antivirus solutions like BitDefender are a must-have, together with a strong firewall, but it is the end user who must be aware of the lurking dangers because personal carelessness is one of the main gateways hackers exploit.

There is an unspecified number of hackers in the world, and a list of the most famous ones follows.

  • Kevin Mitnick, the most wanted computer criminal in the USA.
  • Gary McKinnon, coordinator of the largest military computer hack.
  • Robert Tappan Morris, the creator of the first computer worm.
  • Julian Assange, the guy who created WikiLeaks.
  • Anonymous, an international hacktivist group which targeted Amazon, PayPal, Sony, etc. as their victims.

We conclude with a quote from Newton Lee:

“As the world is increasingly interconnected, every shares the responsibility of securing cyberspace”.

As a society, we cherish our right to privacy probably more than anything else. Sharing is great, and we all enjoy it, but there is always that other side, the untold story, the personal, the secret. Now, let’s extrapolate this to a societal level. How many information is out there, purposely being concealed for the sake of greater good, for the sake of our own safety? The number is probably unfathomable. Today, when everything is online, and our lives are intertwined with a world most of us know nothing about, privacy and safety become an issue of epic proportions.

That is why we need to talk about cyber crime and utilize the very best VPNs. However, instead of writing a tract of tedious length, here is an infographic that outlines the most important cyber crime facts all of us should be aware of in 2018.

VIDEO EXPOSE: Twitter Engineers To ‘Ban a Way of Talking’ Through ‘Shadow Banning’

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In the latest undercover Project Veritas video investigation, eight current and former Twitter employees are on camera explaining steps the social media giant is taking to censor political content that they don’t like.

VIDEO: Senior Network Security Engineer Reveals Twitter Ready to Give Trump’s Private DMs to DOJ.

In an email, the alternative social media site, Gab.ai states:

Since August 2016 Gab has been leading the way with exposing the double standards, hypocrisy, and mass censorship of Big Social Media companies in Silicon Valley. We’ve told you about shadow-banning, hypocritical one-sided rule enforcement, unfair treatment of conservatives and Trump supporters, and one-sided political agendas being pushed by these multi-billion dollar communication platforms that are used by hundreds of millions of people.

Over the last several months we’ve been working closely with Project Veritas to help them infiltrate these big technology companies and expose the mass censorship and corruption happening each and everyday. Thanks to James O’Keefe and his team there is now undeniable proof of Twitter employees admitting that censorship, double standards, and hypocrisy are indeed happening on these platforms.

Olinda Hassan is a Policy Manager for Twitter’s Trust and Safety Team. Her team is responsible for the enforcement of Twitter’s rules and regulation, deciding who and what is allowed to be on the platform. Project Veritas caught her on camera saying this:

PV Journalist: “But how do you keep, like, my timeline… how do you keep certain things off my timeline? People will like retweet people.

Olinda: “We’re trying to down rank it, but you also need to have control of your timeline.”

PV Journalist: I’ve tried to, like block people like Cernovich and stuff like that and mute and stuff like that, but they still show up, like all the time.

Olinda: Yeah. That’s something we’re working on. It’s something we’re working on. We’re trying to get the shitty people to not show up. It’s a product thing we’re working on.”

Some of the other admissions captured by Project Veritas are staggering, and confirm everything that Gab has been saying since August 2016: Silicon Valley is censoring Trump supporters, conservatives, and anyone else they disagree with politically. Here’s a quote from a former member of Twitter’s Content Review Team:

PV Journalist: …a user end services person would deem it: “Pro-Trump,” and take it down?

Mo Norai: Yeah, if they said this is: “Pro-Trump” I don’t want it because it offends me, this, that. And I say I banned this whole thing, and it goes over here and they are like, Oh you know what? I don’t like it too. You know what? Mo’s right, let’s go, let’s carry on, what’s next?

PV Journalist: So, I flag something it’s going to go by you….

Mo Norai: Correct, and they you know you’re looking at it and you’re like: “Oh hey, this is Pro-Trump ….I don’t like it.

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EDITORS NOTE: James O’Keefe has just completed a book about this series entitled “AMERICAN PRAVDA: My fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News.” The book will be released by St. Martin’s Press on January 16, 2018. Pre-order the book: http://www.americanpravdabook.com

How Equifax was hacked in major security breach

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In case you haven’t already heard about it, there was a massive security breach at Equifax, a credit reporting company, that leaked sensitive information affecting around 150 million people. The sensitive data included Social Security Numbers, Addresses or Phone numbers. And the fact that makes this data leak even more impressive compared with others is that most of the affected people might not even be aware.  Here’s the complete coverage of the data breach:

The size of the breach

According to the company official statement, around 143 million people were affected in the United States alone and there were victims from UK and Canada as well but no estimation has been given for that.  What’s even worse is that, besides of the SSN and personal info like phone numbers and physical addresses, more than 20000 US citizens got their card numbers compromised, making this breach one of the most severe in history.

When and how did it happen?

Equifax were unable to pinpoint the exact date of the hack, especially considering that it seems to have happened over several days. However, officials stated that, according to investigations, the hack happened between May and July and it was discovered on the 29th of July by security experts inside the company. The public was not informed until the 7th of September though and that is another point of criticism for Equifax.

Asked about the circumstances that lead to this breach, the Equifax officials said that the hackers managed to exploit website application vulnerability and gained access to several files that contained the sensitive info they stole. Even with the size of the breach, company officials are still quite quiet about the whole thing.

Who was behind the attack?

Once again, Equifax did not manage to give a clear answer in this regard. They decided to hide behind the fact that an investigation is taking place since they found out about the breach and that they will come back with clarifications once the investigation is over. Of course, according to this event, rumors already started pointing towards several Russian or North Korean hacker groups as possible authors.

How can you check if you are at risk?

The odd thing about this hack is that most of the data stolen from Equifax belong to persons that were not even aware that they exist in such a database. How was this possible, you may ask? Well, because they gather data from credit card companies, retailers, banks and lenders and some of them are not obliged to notify the customers about giving that data to such a third party as Equifax.

They advise customers to go for credit file monitoring and identity theft protection through their TrustedID Premier service regardless of the fact that you have been a victim of the hack or not. In order to find out if you were among the victims of the attack, you should check on their website by providing your last name and last six digits of your social security number. This checks their database and notifies you almost instantly if you were among the victims of the data leak or not.

Who is investigating this breach?

The first independent investigation was launched by the New York Attorney General, followed by a Congressman that sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman regarding the initiation of an official investigation on the same subject. Besides this, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also looking into the attack as well. They issued a press release saying that their institution is authorized to take action against other institutions that might be engaged in unfair or abusive acts of practices or that violate federal consumer financial laws. In the ending of the press release, their spokesman also mentioned that they are looking into the data breach and collaborating with Equifax but cannot further comment on the topic.

Is Equifax the biggest data breach recorded?

While the hack attaches that affected Equifax is, indeed, very large in terms of affected individuals and the severity of data that was made accessible to people with not-so-good intentions, this is not the biggest data leak in history. Just recently, the online giant Yahoo was attacked and almost 1 billion accounts were breached then. Fortunately, the data was not as sensitive as being able to steal Social Security Numbers or Credit Card numbers but the violation of privacy is sometimes worse.

As a bottom line, as long as big companies that handle sensitive data won’t dedicate a lot of attention safeguarding themselves and the info they possess from this kind of attacks and hackers, no info is safe. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t trust giving your personal info online, however, make sure to double check IF they have a security system and how effective is it. That may seem like an odd question for their support operators, however, we’re living in the modern era. So, stay safe and only work with a trusted system that shows clear signs of anti-theft protection.

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How Google and Facebook Collect Data about You and the Internet

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Google and Facebook are probably the most widely used websites on the Internet. Around 70% of Internet users globally use Google as their default search engine, while Facebook already has 1.5 billion users. These two Internet giants collect enormous amounts of data every day, from many different sources. And it would be naïve on our part to think that they only make use of the data we deliberately provide them with. In reality, both Google and Facebook have their own user tracking and data collection systems that go beyond our public profiles.

Google’s Data Collection Tools

Google has penetrated every sphere of people’s online activity. Just a few services that are the most wide-spread:

  • Gmail – contains all the information about your contacts and the content of your letters. It is one of the most used email services, along with Yahoo and Hotmail.
  • Google Docs – contains tons of information about businesses and personal projects
  • Google search engine collects data from your search enquiries. It also knows, which search results you click on and how much time you spend on the search result web page.
  • Youtube – Google integration allows it to know which videos you watch and for how long, knowing a lot about your preferences.
  • Twitter – owned by Google, Twitter provides it with tons of user information

There are tons of other Google services, like Google Analytics, Google Finance, Google Apps, just to name a few. Have you ever thought about why all these services should be for free? The answer lies in the fact that the more services are free and of good quality, the more people across the globe will use them. And using a service means providing it with data. This way, Google possesses enormous layers of user data from every corner of the world.

How does it put it to use? In our digital era, information is power. First of all, Google makes a lot of money on advertising. In order for it to be effective, Google uses your search and other information to show you the ads that are most likely to work. The more Google knows about you, the more effective the advertising will be. Secondly, such data arrays allow Google to know about emerging market trends earlier than anybody else, with immense opportunities for competitive advantage. Thanks to this information, they can react to change much faster, and again, make more profit.

What Facebook Knows About You

With all the advantages global information can give you it would be unwise to think Facebook does not take advantage of the colossal amount of information it has access to.

Here are a few tools Facebook uses to track your activity:

  • Facebook cookies allow it to track your browser information, meaning everything you read here on the Internet, even when you left the Facebook page, but did not log out.
  • Facebook Connect is a plug-in that many websites use. It allows you to log in or register on that third-party website using your Facebook login and password. While this really undermines your account security, this also allows Facebook to track your third-party website activities.
  • Instagram is a great tool to track location, hobbies, activities and people involved.

Facebook tracks and makes use of all of your activity inside Facebook itself. Have you ever wondered how your news feed on Facebook works the way it does? Why the news from people you have been chatting with or whose pages you’ve been browsing are displayed first, while some people’s news are not displayed at all? And why you only see ads for your local products even though you have never indicated your place of residence in your Facebook profile?

Unfortunately, Facebook makes use of all the data about your activity on the website: who you chat with in private messages, what you write about and whose pages you prefer. Moreover, it also keeps track of how much time you spend on a certain post you are reading, and how much time it takes you to view news on certain topics. Just as in the case of Google, this information is used for profit-making purposes. The more Facebook knows about people of your age and interests, the more effective advertising could be. The power of Facebook in knowing all about us is virtually unlimited.

So, what can we do with this information? To be completely honest, nothing. We are at that point in time when quitting Facebook or Google would cut us off millions of opportunities, including staying in touch with our relatives, shopping for food or finding a job. Google and Facebook own the Earth, and there is not much you can do about it.

The only precaution could be to keep private things really private. Keep your accounts free of your private pictures or data you don’t want anybody to know about, and store commercial information about your business on some hardware in your closet. In a data-driven world like ours, it is impossible to avoid being part of the data collection pool, but it is after all a natural thing for the modern era.

FBI seized smashed hard drives from Wasserman Schultz’s Muslim IT aide’s home

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Five Pakistani-born Muslim Congressional IT aides are now under criminal investigation, and the establishment media is resolutely looking the other way.

Imran Awan (right)

Questions abound. “Collectively, the Awan group has been paid $4 million since 2009.” That’s a tremendous amount of money for IT work. And what is on these hard drives that led Imran Awan to work so resolutely to recover and destroy them? A genuine journalist would be working hard to find out what Imran Awan and his brothers, and the House Democrats, have to hide. But the establishment media is a propaganda arm for the Democrats, and so it has no interest in this affair.

“EXCLUSIVE: FBI Seized Smashed Hard Drives From Wasserman Schultz IT Aide’s Home,” by Luke Rosiak, Daily Caller News Foundation, July 23, 2017:

FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s information technology (IT) administrator, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation.

Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, an individual whom FBI investigators interviewed in the case told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

An additional source in Congress with direct knowledge of the case, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, confirmed that the FBI has joined what Politico previously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into “serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network” by Imran and three of his relatives, who had access to the emails and files of the more than two dozen House Democrats who employed them on a part-time basis.

Capitol Police have also seized computer equipment tied to the Florida lawmaker.

Awan’s younger brothers, Abid and Jamal, his wife, Hina Alvi, and Rao Abbas, Imran’s best friend, are also under investigation. There have been no arrests in the case.

There is also evidence of financial schemes that extend beyond the Capitol Police’s purview and may expand to Pakistan, where Imran spends significant portions of the year….

Soon after Imran began working for Wasserman Schultz in 2005, his two brothers and two of their wives — plus Abbas and another friend — began appearing as IT staffers on the payrolls of other House Democrats. Collectively, the Awan group has been paid $4 million since 2009.

Fellow IT staffers TheDCNF interviewed said the Awans were often absent from weekly meetings and email exchanges. One of the fellow staffers said some of the computers the Awans managed were being used to transfer data to an off-site server.

Shortly after the criminal probe was revealed in February, Imran abruptly moved out of his longtime home on Hawkshead Drive in Lorton, Va., and listed it for rent on a website that connects landlords with military families.

One of the new tenants — a Marine Corps veteran married to a female Navy Officer — said he found “wireless routers, hard drives that look like they tried to destroy, laptops, [and] a lot of brand new expensive toner.”

The tenants called the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and, not long after, FBI agents arrived together with the Capitol Police to interview them and confiscate the equipment. The Marine spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns for his wife’s naval career, saying she doesn’t want to be associated with a national security incident.

“It was in the garage. They recycled cabinets and lined them along the walls. They left in a huge hurry,” the Marine said. “It looks like government-issued equipment. We turned that stuff over.”…

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What Is the Deep State? by Thomas Knapp

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Buzzwords come and buzzwords go. Lately, a trending buzzword – or, I guess, buzz phrase – among the politically inclined is “Deep State.” Google News returns 127,000 recent media uses of the phrase.

Every time US president Donald Trump finds himself under attack or just stymied in one of his policy initiatives, his supporters blame the Deep State. The Deep State is behind the “Russiagate” probes. The Deep State doesn’t like his Muslim travel ban or his ObamaCare replacement bill. The Deep State keeps forcing him to break his campaign promises of a less misadventurous US foreign policy.

I’m expecting reports, any day now, that the Deep State stole his limo keys and left the toilet seats up in the residence area of the White House.

So what, precisely, is the Deep State?  There’s actually both more and less to it than you might think.

Defining the Deep State

In a recent Bloomberg column, former Obama administration regulatory czar Cass Sunstein defines the Deep State as merely “the talented professionals who serve both Democratic and Republican administrations, and who are civil servants rather than political appointees.” While not incorrect as such, that definition is superficial and not especially informative.Actions of state functionaries tend to maximize the state’s growth and their own discretionary power.

Others identify the Deep State as residing completely or nearly completely in the US “intelligence community” specifically and the Military-Industrial Complex in general, or in Washington’s sprawling regulatory apparatus.

It’s in the intel/military definition that the idea tends to take on a more active, sinister connotations: Spies and generals conspiring to put over a coup of some sort, if necessary maybe even giving inconvenient political figures the JFK treatment. Without discounting that possibility, let me propose that while individuals acting in knowing concert might be a minor feature of the Deep State, they aren’t its essence.

In high school civics class theory, elections are meaningful and political government is a highly developed, well-oiled, deliberative decision-making machine in which ideas matter and the best ones win out, to the benefit of all.

In fact, it is in the nature of political government to put its own needs first, and its corps of unelected workers (greatly outnumbering the politicians who have to explain themselves to voters) closely identify its needs with their needs and vice versa.

Resistance to Change in Motion

The aggregate actions of long-term state functionaries will always tend to maximize the state’s growth and their own discretionary power. Not because they are venal or corrupt (although some certainly are), nor because they necessarily subscribe to some particular ideology (although some certainly do), but because like their actions, they themselves are an aggregate whose parts will overwhelmingly respond to the same incentives in the same ways.

You’ll never walk into a hotel and see a sign in the lobby announcing “Welcome Deep State, Conference Room 3A.” The Deep State isn’t a conscious conspiracy, even if there are conscious conspirators within it. The Deep State is a large mass with no guiding intellect. Its inertia tends to hold it in one place and/or to carry most of its members in the same direction.

Reprinted from the Libertarian Institute.

Thomas Knapp

Thomas Knapp

Thomas L. Knapp, aka KN@PPSTER, is Director and Senior News Analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism and publisher of Rational Review News Digest. He lives and works in north central Florida.

Israeli Comes up with fix to inoculate against Ransomeware Virus

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Credit Israeli cyber sleuths for coming up with a quick fix to protect network operating software against intrusion by Ransonware. Take that Symantec and Kaspersky labs.

Note this Jewish Press.com/Ha’aretz report.

Amit Serfer, an Israeli researcher at Siibrizn Labs, discovered a method to block attacks of the Petya ransomware program that on Tuesday hit thousands of computers around the world, including in Israel, Ha’aretz reported on Wednesday.

Tuesday’s second major global ransomware attack in as many months crippled and held for ransom the computers of major firms including British multinational advertising and public relations company WPP, food company Mondelez, legal firm DLA Piper and Danish shipping and transport firm Maersk.

Researchers have reported that Petya not only encrypts specific files, but also encapsulates the computer boot sector (MBR), the part of the hard disk that’s loaded first when the computer is started. It includes information on the hard disk structure and is used to load the operating system.

Serfer discovered a way to prevent Petya from turning on and multiplying itself. “When the malicious software starts working, it checks whether in the past it ran the files, so as not to encrypt them twice,” he told Ha’aretz. “It looks for the name of the file without an extension in a Windows folder that turned it on (C:\windows\perfc).”

According to Serfer, if Petya finds the file, it concludes the computer has already been attacked and does not activate the encryption function.Credit Israeli cyber sleuths for coming up with a quick fix to protect network operating software against intrusion by Ransonware. Take that Symantec and Kaspersky labs.

Note this Jewish Press.com/Ha’aretz report.

Amit Serfer, an Israeli researcher at Siibrizn Labs, discovered a method to block attacks of the Petya ransomware program that on Tuesday hit thousands of computers around the world, including in Israel, Ha’aretz reported on Wednesday.

Tuesday’s second major global ransomware attack in as many months crippled and held for ransom the computers of major firms including British multinational advertising and public relations company WPP, food company Mondelez, legal firm DLA Piper and Danish shipping and transport firm Maersk.
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Researchers have reported that Petya not only encrypts specific files, but also encapsulates the computer boot sector (MBR), the part of the hard disk that’s loaded first when the computer is started. It includes information on the hard disk structure and is used to load the operating system.

Serfer discovered a way to prevent Petya from turning on and multiplying itself. “When the malicious software starts working, it checks whether in the past it ran the files, so as not to encrypt them twice,” he told Ha’aretz. “It looks for the name of the file without an extension in a Windows folder that turned it on (C:\windows\perfc).”

According to Serfer, if Petya finds the file, it concludes the computer has already been attacked and does not activate the encryption function.

Serfer sees his solution as an inoculation against the invading virus.

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