FBI starts three probes in suspected Russian hacking of U.S presidential elections

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  19 Feb 2017 , 11:11

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is pursuing at least three separate probes relating to alleged Russian hacking of the U.S. presidential elections, according to five current and former government officials with direct knowledge of the situation. While the fact that the FBI is investigating had been reported previously by the New York Times and other media, these officials shed new light on both the precise number of inquires and their focus.

The FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, which runs many cyber security investigations, is trying to identify the people behind breaches of the Democratic National Committee’s computer systems, the officials said. Those breaches, in 2015 and the first half of 2016, exposed the internal communications of party officials as the Democratic nominating convention got underway and helped undermine support for Hillary Clinton.

The Pittsburgh case has progressed furthest, but Justice Department officials in Washington believe there is not enough clear evidence yet for an indictment, two of the sources said. Meanwhile the bureau’s San Francisco office is trying to identify the people who called themselves “Guccifer 2” and posted emails stolen from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s account, the sources said. Those emails contained details about fundraising by the Clinton Foundation and other topics.

Beyond the two FBI field offices, FBI counterintelligence agents based in Washington are pursuing leads from informants and foreign communications intercepts, two of the people said. This counterintelligence inquiry includes but is not limited to examination of financial transactions by Russian individuals and companies who are believed to have links to Trump associates. The transactions under scrutiny involve investments by Russians in overseas entities that appear to have been undertaken through middlemen and front companies, two people briefed on the probe said.

Reuters could not confirm which entities and individuals were under scrutiny. Scott Smith, the FBI’s new assistant director for cyber crime, declined to comment this week on which FBI offices were doing what or how far they had progressed. The White House had no comment on Friday on the Russian hacking investigations. A spokesman pointed to a comment Trump made during the campaign, in which he said: “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia, but I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.”

During a news conference Thursday, President Donald Trump said he had no business connections to Russia. The people who spoke to Reuters also corroborated a Tuesday New York Times report that Americans with ties to Trump or his campaign had repeated contacts with current and former Russian intelligence officers before the November election. Those alleged contacts are among the topics of the FBI counterintelligence investigation.

Reuters

Why big data leaders must worry about IoT security

By Mary Shacklett | October 28, 2016, 1:08 PM PST

The security risks associated with IoT devices cannot be ignored. If your big data plans include IoT devices, follow these four steps to reduce your chances of a security breach.

A series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks powered by the malware botnet Mirai on October 21, 2016 disabled Dyn, the domain name system provider for hundreds of major websites, including Netflix, Twitter, and PayPal. The malware infected and spread through systems with the help of hacker-compromised web-connected cameras and digital recorders in consumer households, and security experts expressed their concerns about new threats from home electronics and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Big data leaders should take particular notice of this recent attack, because it highlights why security needs to be top of mind when incorporating IoT into analytics projects.


Research firm Gartner projects that 26 billion IoT devices will be installed by 2020. These IoT devices and sensors will be connected to freight containers, facility alarms, data centers, HVAC environmental monitoring equipment, hospital operating rooms, etc., and companies will be expected to do something with the information collected from these devices.

IoT applications that are already in the field include smart meters used by electric and gas utilities. Estimates are that by 2020, there will be over 900 million of these smart meters installed globally, with Asia leading the transition to smart energy grids, followed by Europe and North America. The cost of installing these smart meters is over $100 billion, but the projected financial benefits will reach $160 billion. So the return on investment (ROI) is there, but what else do companies have to worry about?

With smart meters, we're looking at millions of devices with physical exposure and the ability to inject software attacks from multiple points of entry. To a greater or lessor degree, this IoT exposure also applies to manufacturing, logistics, and other companies operating IoT devices at the edges of enterprises, and even to highly centralized companies where malware could leak in through an IoT-monitored HVAC or environmental monitoring device.

More about IoT security attacks and vulnerabilities

In December 2015, 30 of 135 power substations in the Ukraine were taken out for

OurMine hacks Buzzfeed in retaliation for publishing details of alleged member

By Rob Thubron on October 6, 2016, 12:30 PM




You may be familiar with the name OurMine. The group has been responsible for several high-profile hacks of celebrities and some of the most famous CEOs in the tech industry, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Uber’s Travis Kalanick. Now, the hackers have hit BuzzFeed in retaliation for an article that exposed one of its alleged members.

Joseph Bernstein’s investigation identified Saudi teenager Ahmed Makki as a member of OurMine. The group denied this, claiming he was “just a fan,” but the story appears to have touched a nerve – BuzFeed was hacked the morning after the report, with the titles of several articles changed to “Hacked by OurMine.”

The body of several stories, including Bernstein’s, had the following text added: “Don’t share fake news about us again, we have your database. Next time it will be public. Don’t f**k with OurMine again.”

It’s unclear precisely what database the group is referring to, or what information it contains, though an email to The Guardian from an account associated with the hackers claims it was “Emails, Password Hashes, Usernames.”

There has been no comment from Makki, but OurMine’s website states: “Yesterday Buzzfeed Created a post that we are only 1 member called Ahmed Makki, and we can confirm that we don’t Have a member called ‘Ahmed Makki’ and we are now 4 we were 3 but someone joined, and we hacked it because they are reporting fake news about us.”

“We have a member known as ‘Makki’ But not ahmad makki, and he is not from Saudi Arabia.”

BuzzFeed quickly restored the affected articles, including the original OurMine exposé, back to their original state.

OurMine said the only reason it infiltrates accounts is to show that nobody is secure, using the exposure to advertise its services so people can stay “safe from other hackers.”

FBI probes hacks targeting phones of Democratic Party officials: Report

The FBI is investigating suspected attempts to hack mobile phones used by Democratic Party officials as recently as the past month, four people with direct knowledge of the attack and the investigation told Reuters.

The revelation underscores the widening scope of the U.S. criminal inquiry into cyber attacks on Democratic Party organizations, including the presidential campaign of its candidate, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

U.S. officials have said they believe those attacks were