Tag: officials
US officials believe Chinese hackers lurk in critical infrastructure
Chinese hackers have been hiding in US critical infrastructure for at least the last five years, CNN reported on Wednesday. By lurking behind the scenes of transportation, water, electricity and other important systems, the hackers have the opportunity to strike whenever they deem the time is right, US officials say in a 50-page report on the subject. A public version of the full document is set to be released next week.
Officials from the FBI and the Justice Department previously issued a court order to update software that could succumb to Chinese hacking. The effort aimed to fight Chinese hacking by remotely disabling certain affected systems. According to the department, it was able to remove code from hundreds of internet routers that could have let Chinese hackers in.
The forthcoming report reveals just how long this has been going on, and how bad a potential cyberattack could be. It’s set to detail hackers’ techniques, while providing guidance to companies behind critical infrastructure systems on how to find Chinese hackers in their systems. There are no signs in the report that hackers have acted maliciously against US infrastructure yet.
Hackers started by getting into IT systems and, from there, working their way into more important tech behind US infrastructure. They also broke into security cameras at some of the facilities and, in another case, accessed water treatment plants, the report says.
Last week, FBI director Christopher Wray warned Congress that Chinese hackers were preparing to wreck havoc on US critical infrastructure systems. “Cyber threats to our critical infrastructure represent real world threats to our physical safety,” he said at the hearing.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-officials-believe-chinese-hackers-lurk-in-critical-infrastructure-150319581.html?src=rss
US officials believe Chinese hackers lurk in critical infrastructure
Chinese hackers have been hiding in US critical infrastructure for at least the last five years, CNN reported on Wednesday. By lurking behind the scenes of transportation, water, electricity and other important systems, the hackers have the opportunity to strike whenever they deem the time is right, US officials say in a 50-page report on the subject. A public version of the full document is set to be released next week.
Officials from the FBI and the Justice Department previously issued a court order to update software that could succumb to Chinese hacking. The effort aimed to fight Chinese hacking by remotely disabling certain affected systems. According to the department, it was able to remove code from hundreds of internet routers that could have let Chinese hackers in.
The forthcoming report reveals just how long this has been going on, and how bad a potential cyberattack could be. It’s set to detail hackers’ techniques, while providing guidance to companies behind critical infrastructure systems on how to find Chinese hackers in their systems. There are no signs in the report that hackers have acted maliciously against US infrastructure yet.
Hackers started by getting into IT systems and, from there, working their way into more important tech behind US infrastructure. They also broke into security cameras at some of the facilities and, in another case, accessed water treatment plants, the report says.
Last week, FBI director Christopher Wray warned Congress that Chinese hackers were preparing to wreck havoc on US critical infrastructure systems. “Cyber threats to our critical infrastructure represent real world threats to our physical safety,” he said at the hearing.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-officials-believe-chinese-hackers-lurk-in-critical-infrastructure-150319581.html?src=rss
Officials urged Braverman to halt asylum plan for RAF Scampton
Another Mysterious Balloon Is Being Tracked by U.S. Officials
Balloon hysteria in America might strike again. After some hullabaloo involving mysterious spy payloads drifting into American airspace earlier this year, the U.S. military says it’s tracking yet another balloon.
SCOTUS Will Decide Whether Public Officials Can Block Naysayers on Social Media
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear two First Amendment rights cases this fall after San Diego board members blocked parents for raising concerns on their social media accounts. A second case was filed against the city manager in Port Huron, Michigan for blocking a resident who raised Covid-19 concerns on his Facebook…
Supreme Court could decide if government officials can block social media users
The Supreme Court is set to hear two cases that could decide if the First Amendment allows government officials to block users on personal social media accounts where they post about their work.
The cases are O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier and Lindke v. Freed, both concerning public officials who use social media. The first involves two elected school board members who blocked parents who left repetitious comments on their posts. The second involves James Freed, the city manager of Port Huron, who blocked accounts and deleted comments from his Facebook page. Neither case applies to whether platforms can ban or otherwise moderate users, an issue that the Supreme Court is likely to take up at a later point.
Public officials blocking users…
California Officials Find Some of the Deepest Snowpack Ever After a Stormy Winter
After an unexpectedly wet winter marked by consecutive storms in California, the state’s snowpack is now one of the highest that officials have ever documented.
Chinese Officials Release ‘Updated Analysis’ of 1,300 Samples From Wuhan Market
In a preprint published on Wednesday, researchers from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said there was “convincing evidence” that Sars-Cov-2 was spreading widely at Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market in January 2020.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, tells them “This data could and should have been shared three years ago.” China’s paper then called for “more work involving international coordination” to investigate the potential origins of SARS-CoV-2. “Surveillance of wild animals using a viromic approach should be enhanced to explore the potential natural and intermediate hosts for SARS-CoV-2, if any, which would help to prevent future pandemics caused by animal-origin coronaviruses or alike, with a spillover event.”
But the Telegraph notes that China also “claimed it’s not clear how Covid got there, as no virus was found in the 457 animal swabs taken from 18 species at the market.
The data behind the latest Chinese research has proved controversial, after a team of international experts downloaded the genetic sequences that had been discreetly shared on a database called GISAID. Their analysis was the first conducted on the data outside China, which has been accused by the World Health Organization of withholding critical clues. In samples taken from the Wuhan market that tested positive for Covid, the international team found genetic material from wildlife known to be susceptible to Sars-Cov-2 — including racoon dogs, palm civets and Himalayan marmots. This does not prove these animals were infected, but does confirm they were being illegally sold at Huanan market in early 2020.
“What we are seeing is the genomic ghost of that animal in the stalls,” said Dr Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, who first spotted the data when trawling GISAID. “It’s close to the best [evidence] we can get, because the animals were gone when they came to sample the markets,” she told the Telegraph earlier this month….
The latest paper from China CDC — published on ChinaXiv on Wednesday — reveals that although researchers sampled 18 species including bamboo rats, wild boars and hedgehogs, they did not take specimens from animals including raccoon dogs now known to be susceptible to the virus. It is likely that this is because they had already been removed. Some researchers said this undermines the China CDC’s suggestion that animals did not bring the virus into the market — a route that China has consistently discredited, much like the potential for a laboratory leak, as it does not want the origin to be within its own borders. “This claim that no live animals with the virus were found at the market is one of the most pernicious and misleading talking points proffered,” said Dr Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who led the international analysis.
“If no live raccoon dogs… or other plausible intermediate hosts species were tested (because they had all disappeared by the time this testing took place), then saying that the lack of Sars-CoV-2 live animals at the market is evidence against a zoonotic origin is at best misinformed. At worst, it is deliberate disinformation,” he told the Telegraph.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.