Group items tagged

President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired top cybersecurity official Chris Krebs in a message on Twitter, accusing him without evidence of making a “highly inaccurate” statement affirming the Nov. 3 election was secure and rejecting claims of fraud.

Krebs’ work in protecting the election from hackers and combating disinformation about the vote won praise from lawmakers of both parties as well as state and election officials around the country.

Reuters reported last week that Krebs had told associates he expected to be fired.

Christopher Krebs, who led the federal government's efforts to secure the 2020 election, was fired by President Trump last month for saying the election went smoothly and with no signs of cheating or interference.

Krebs told NPR he has no regrets.

Krebs, a self-described "lifelong Republican," has become something of a symbol for government officials who see their work as nonpartisan even as politicians try to paint them otherwise.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told CNN the United States has "offensive options" to respond to cyberattacks following another major attack that is believed to have been carried out by the Russian group behind the SolarWinds hack.

Austin's comments come after the hackers behind one of the worst data breaches ever to hit the US government launched a new global cyberattack on more than 150 government agencies, think tanks and other organizations, according to Microsoft.

The group, which Microsoft calls "Nobelium," targeted 3,000 email accounts at various organizations this week — most of which were in the United States, the company said in a blog post Thursday.

The latest CNN/SSRS survey found that 70 percent of Republicans believe the false allegation that Joe Biden did not defeat Mr. Trump; a mere 23 percent said Mr. Biden won, despite the Trump administration’s admission that “the November 3 election was the most secure in American history.”

These Republicans believe they are truth-tellers and patriots, sentries at freedom’s gate. They are utterly sincere; they are also quite dangerous. They are taking a sledgehammer to pillars of American democracy: confidence in the legitimacy of our elections, the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power.

Most Republican members of Congress, on the other hand, don’t believe President Biden was illegitimately elected. Kevin McCarthy, Elise Stefanik, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham aren’t deceived. They are play acting in ways that are unethical and cynical, but they are not stupid. They’re fully aware that the cancerous lies have metastasized — they each played a crucial role in spreading them, after all — and to refute those lies publicly would put targets on their backs.

Ransomware hacks are everywhere if you look for them. These are just the ones we know about:

Food -- A hack of JBS Foods, the world's largest meat processor, shut multiple plants over the weekend.Fuel -- The Colonial Pipeline hack led to fuel shortages on the East Coast last month. The company has admitted to paying more $4.4 million in ransom, although the FBI has said ransoms of more than $25 million have been demanded.Hospitals -- A hack of the Scripps hospital system in San Diego has led to the breach of medical information for more than 150,000 people. The Irish health system was also targeted. More on how hackers target hospitals and first responders below.Trains -- A New York City subway system hack from April was reported Wednesday by the The New York Times.Ferries -- There are also smaller hacks, like the one affecting the ferry system in Cape Cod.

Eyes on Russia. The White House has its eyes on Russia for enabling both the Colonial Pipeline and JBS meat processing hacks. Read CNN's full report on the JBS attack here.

"I WON THE ELECTION!" President Donald Trump tweeted just before midnight on Sunday night. Trump did not win the election. So this was a fitting conclusion to his lie-filled weekend barrage of tweets, in which he continued to invent imaginary evidence in support of his attempt to deny Joe Biden's victory.

Almost nothing Trump is saying about the election is true

Twitter affixed a fact check label to more than 30 of his election-related tweets and retweets between Friday and Monday morning

A group of national, state and private election officials said in a joint statement Thursday that there is no evidence of any voting system being compromised in the 2020 election despite President Donald Trump's deluge of election fraud conspiracies.

"The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result," the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees said.

"There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

The warning, from the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm, indicated that hackers had found another line of attack to enter systems used by the government and Fortune 500 companies.

Federal officials issued an urgent warning Thursday that the hackers who had penetrated deep into government systems also used other malware — and different attack techniques — that posed “a grave risk to the federal government.”

Russian intelligence agency’s hackers had, since this spring, gotten into critical network monitoring software used by the government and hundreds of Fortune 500 companies.