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Caesars paid around $15 million in ransom to regain access to its systems from the hackers, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. Some have been collecting evidence leading to the hackers' identities and are assisting law enforcement, according to the five insiders. The sources say that, following the September casino hacks, the FBI's investigation took on new urgency. Mandia didn't respond directly when asked whether Scattered Spider's identities were known to law enforcement. But he did say that there was no excuse for not arresting hackers who operated from the West.

Persons: Bridget Bennett, Michael Sentonas, Sentonas, Alphabet's, James Foster, Foster, cybercriminals, gona, Kevin Mandia, Mandiant, you've, Zeba Siddiqui, Raphael Satter, Christopher Bing, Chris Sanders, Claudia Parsons Organizations: MGM, MGM Resorts, REUTERS, FRANCISCO, U.S . Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, Industry, Reuters, Department of Justice, Caesars, Wall Street, Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, ex, Telegram, Thomson Locations: Las Vegas , Nevada, U.S, WASHINGTON, America, Palo, American, Baltimore , Maryland, United States, Newark , New Jersey, sextortion, San Francisco, Washington

WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors say an Israeli private investigator used hackers to steal emails from climate activists who were campaigning against American energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N). Prosecutors stopped short of stating a connection between the Israeli private eye – former policeman Aviram Azari – and Exxon, and the memo did not identify any of his clients. Victims say that leaves a key question unanswered. Exxon pushed back, filing lawsuits that cited press articles, which suggested the activists were using underhanded tactics. “Azari facilitated the hacking scheme by directing groups of hackers, including a particular group of individuals based in India, to target specific victims,’” prosecutors wrote.

Persons: Damian Williams, parry, Prosecutors, Aviram Azari, Kert Davies, Paul Weiss, Bradley Campbell, Williams, Azari, Barry, “ Azari, ’, Raphael Satter, Christopher Bing, Leslie Adler, Richard Chang Organizations: U.S, Exxon Mobil Corp, Southern, of, Exxon, Climate Integrity, Natural Resources, Conservation Law Foundation, Exxon Mobil, Reuters, Thomson Locations: of New York, New York, Massachusetts, India, United States

In another case, a video showed a billboard in the central Israeli city of Holon displaying images of rockets and a burning Israeli flag. Israeli information security professionals are banding together to provide free cybersecurity services to Israeli companies amid a spike in hacktivist activity sparked by the war in Gaza, volunteers said. Ohad Zaidenberg, an Israeli IT specialist, is leading a group of volunteers to help Israeli companies that are being actively targeted. The organizers of the volunteers are drawing the line on members taking vigilante action against Hamas, said Omri Segev Moyal, the chief executive of the Israeli cybersecurity firm Profero. Moyal, who runs a popular Facebook group for Israeli cybersecurity professionals, said he had already removed a couple of posts calling for digital action against the Palestinian group.

Persons: Brendan McDermid, fatigues, Yossi Appleboum, Appleboum, Zoom didn’t, Ohad, ”, Omri Segev Moyal, Moyal, Profero, “, Raphael Satter, Christopher Bing, James Pearson, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: Palestinian, Hamas, REUTERS, Reuters, Telegram, Thomson Locations: Israel, New York City, U.S, LONDON, Holon, Gaza, Israel's, Israeli, Washington, London

A hooded man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsOct 10 (Reuters) - Hacktivist groups say they are hitting Israeli targets online amid the war in Israel and Gaza, disrupting and defacing websites like the Jerusalem Post. The conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors routinely attracts both intense global interest and politically minded hackers - dubbed hacktivists - who piggyback on the fighting, either to support their favored side or simply get attention. "There are dozens of victims per day, claimed by both pre-established and new (hacktivist) groups," cyber intelligence firm Recorded Future said. Examples of serious or long-term damage are still thin, but the activism shows how a subset of supporters use digital tools to bring the war online.

Persons: Kacper, Avi Mayer, hacktivists, Omri Segev Moyal, Israel, Profero, Christopher Bing, Raphael Satter, Zeba Siddiqui, Chris Sanders, Sonali Paul Organizations: REUTERS, CERT, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: Israel, Gaza, Jerusalem, Ukraine, Iranian, Washington, San Francisco

"I think the potential for unintended harm from the use of AI exists in any federal agency and in any use of AI," said DHS Chief Information Officer Eric Hysen. And when we interact with people, it can be during some of the most critical times of their lives." Historically, academics have flagged the dangers of AI regarding racial profiling and because it can still make errors while identifying relationships in complex data. The guidelines will also require that facial recognition matches discovered using AI technology be manually reviewed by human analysts to ensure their accuracy, according to a new directive that the agency plans to release alongside the AI memo later on Thursday. Another area where DHS has already uses AI technology extensively is on the southern border, where the agency has deployed more than 200 surveillance cameras, said Hysen.

Persons: Marco Bello, Alejandro Mayorkas, Eric Hysen, Hysen, Alexandra Alper, Christopher Bing, Chizu Organizations: U.S . Department of Homeland Security, REUTERS, Rights, Department of Homeland Security, Customs, Border Patrol, DHS, Thomson Locations: Mexico, U.S, Del Rio , Texas, California's San Isidro Port

REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsSept 7 - Researchers at digital watchdog group Citizen Lab said on Thursday they found spyware they linked to Israeli firm NSO that exploited a newly discovered flaw in Apple (AAPL.O) devices. Citizen Lab did not provide further details on the affected individual or the organization. Apple issued new updates on its devices after investigating the flaws reported by Citizen Lab. An Apple spokesperson said it had no further comment, while Citizen Lab urged consumers to update their devices. A NSO spokesperson said it did not have any immediate comment on the Citizen Lab research.

Persons: Mike Segar, Citizen Lab, John Scott, Railton, Apple, Zeba Siddiqui, Christopher Bing, Jamie Freed Organizations: Apple Inc, Apple, REUTERS, Citizen, NSO, Citizen Lab, University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs, U.S, Thomson Locations: Manhattan , New York, U.S, Washington

/U.S House of Representatives/Handout via REUTERS /File PhotoWASHINGTON, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Nebraska Republican Congressman Don Bacon said late on Monday the FBI had warned him that his emails were hacked by Chinese spies, with both personal and campaign messages compromised. Bacon was told that the Chinese Communist Party had access to his accounts for about a month ending on June 16, he said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. CNN previously reported that email accounts in the House of Representatives were targeted as part of the same campaign. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Reporting by Christopher Bing and Raphael Satter; Editing by Devika SyamnathOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Don Bacon of Nebraska, Don Bacon, Bacon, Gina Raimondo, China Nicholas Burns, Christopher Bing, Raphael Satter, Devika Organizations: Republican U.S . Rep, U.S . House, REUTERS, Nebraska Republican, FBI, Chinese Communist Party, Twitter, Microsoft, U.S, U.S . Commerce, CNN, Communist, Embassy, Air Force, House Armed Services Committee, Thomson Locations: Nebraska, China, Washington

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visit an exhibition of armed equipment on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice in this image released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency on July 27, 2023. The fact North Korean hackers may have obtained information about the Zircon does not mean they would immediately have that same capability, said Markus Schiller, a Europe-based missile expert who has researched foreign aid to North Korea's missile programme. Last month, North Korea test-launched the Hwasong-18, the first of its ICBMs to use solid propellants. "North Korea announced that it was doing the same thing in late 2021. If NPO Mash had one useful thing for them, that would be top of my list," he added.

Persons: Kim Jong, Sergei Shoigu, ScarCruft, Lazarus, Tom Hegel, SentinelOne, Hegel, Obama, Nicholas Weaver, Matt Tait, Weaver, Vladimir Putin, Markus Schiller, Schiller, Jeffrey Lewis, James Martin, James Pearson, Christopher Bing, Chris Sanders, Alistair Bell Organizations: Russia's, North, Korean Central News Agency, KCNA, REUTERS, NPO Mashinostroyeniya, Pyongyang LONDON, Reuters, North Korean, United Nations, Soviet Union, NPO, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, Mash, James, James Martin Center, Nonproliferation Studies, Korea, Thomson Locations: Pyongyang, WASHINGTON, Russian, Reutov, Moscow, Russia, Washington, New York, North Korea, Soviet, United States, Crimea, Korean, Europe, London

Aug 1 (Reuters) - An obscure cloud service company has been providing state-sponsored hackers with internet services to spy on and extort their victims, a cybersecurity firm said in a report to be published on Tuesday. Researchers at Texas-based Halcyon said a company called Cloudzy had been leasing server space and reselling it to no fewer than 17 different state-sponsored hacking groups from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan and Vietnam. Halcyon estimated that roughly half of Cloudzy’s business was malicious, including renting services to two ransomware groups. The cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which wasn’t involved in the research, said that it hadn’t seen state-sponsored hackers using Cloudzy. He said the company needed U.S. domicile to be able to register internet protocol addresses in America.

Persons: Halcyon, Cloudzy, Hannan Nozari, couldn’t, Nozari, ”, Ryan Golden, wasn’t, It’s, – CloudPeak, Sheridan –, Adam Meyers, “, Christopher Bing, Cynthia Osterman Organizations: LinkedIn, Reuters, ”, Nozari, CrowdStrike, Thomson Locations: Texas, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Tehran, Nozari, Cyprus, U.S ., Wyoming, America, Sheridan

[1/2] Miniatures of people with computers are seen in front of North Korea flag in this illustration taken July 19, 2023. North Korea has previously denied organizing digital currency heists, despite voluminous evidence - including U.N. reports - to the contrary. “North Korea in my opinion is really stepping up their game,” said Hegel, who works for U.S. firm SentinelOne. The cybersecurity-focused podcast Risky Business earlier this week cited two sources as saying that North Korea was a suspect in the intrusion. "I don't think this is the last we'll see of North Korean supply chain attacks this year," he said.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, ”, JumpCloud, CrowdStrike, Adam Meyers, Tom Hegel, wasn't, Hegel, cryptocurrency, Chainalysis, CrowdStrike's Meyers, Christopher Bing, Raphael Satter, James Pearson, Michelle Nichols, Anna Driver, Bernadette Baum Organizations: REUTERS, WASHINGTON, American IT, Reuters, CrowdStrike Holdings, North, United Nations, U.S, FBI, Thomson Locations: North Korea, Korean, American, Louisville , Colorado, North Korean, New York, Korea, “ North Korea, The U.S, Washington, London

Since the news broke, several victims in addition to the Commerce Department have acknowledged they were affected, including personnel at the State Department and U.S. House of Representatives. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the accusations "disinformation" in a statement to Reuters earlier this week. Raimondo's department has implemented a series of export control policies against China, curbing the transfer of semiconductors and other sensitive technologies. A Commerce Department spokesperson said on Wednesday that Microsoft had notified the agency of "a compromise to Microsoft’s Office 365 system, and the Department took immediate action to respond." Reporting by David Shepardson, Christopher Bing and Simon Lewis in Washington Editing by Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Gina Raimondo, Antony Blinken, Wang Yi, Raimondo, David Shepardson, Christopher Bing, Simon Lewis, Matthew Lewis Organizations: . Commerce, Microsoft, ., State Department, Commerce Department, House, Representatives, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Commerce, Department, FBI, Thomson Locations: China, Jakarta, U.S, Washington

WASHINGTON/LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - Chinese state-linked hackers since May have secretly accessed email accounts at around 25 organizations, including U.S. government accounts, in a stealthy cyberespionage campaign, Microsoft (MSFT.O) and U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Microsoft did not say which organizations or governments had been affected, but added that the hacking group involved primarily targets entities in Western Europe. White House National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said an intrusion in Microsoft's cloud security "affected unclassified systems," without elaborating. The State Department "detected anomalous activity" and "took immediate steps to secure our systems," a department spokesperson said in a statement. Private sector cybersecurity experts have said newly discovered hacking activity shows how Chinese groups are improving their cyber capabilities.

Persons: Jake Sullivan, ABC's, Adam Hodge, Hodge, John Hultquist, Will Dunham Organizations: WASHINGTON, Microsoft, White House, U.S . State Department, ., White, National Security, The State Department, U.S, Thomson Locations: LONDON, U.S, United States, Western Europe, China's, London, China

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) - The FBI has sabotaged a suite of malicious software used by elite Russian spies, U.S. authorities said on Tuesday, providing a glimpse of the digital tug-of-war between two cyber superpowers. "We assess this as being their premier espionage tool," one of the U.S. officials told journalists ahead of the release. He said Washington hoped the operation would "eradicate it from the virtual battlefield." The official identified the FSB hackers behind the malware with a notorious hacking group known as "Turla," which has been active for two decades against a variety of NATO-aligned targets. Moscow routinely denies carrying out cyberespionage operationsReporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Chizu NomiyamaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - A Miami-based digital marketing firm was behind a series of covert political influence operations in Latin America over the last year, Facebook-owner Meta (META.O) said this week, a rare exposé of an apparent U.S.-based misinformation-for-hire outfit. "It's a classic pattern that you tend to see with for-hire influence operations," said Ben Nimmo, Meta's Global Threat Intelligence Lead. Meta says it regularly takes down disinformation and misinformation operations in order to maintain the integrity of its platform. Twitter said in a September 2022 blog that it had shared datasets about influence operations with Cazadores. Former Twitter employees told Reuters in January that most of the staff involved in the TMRC had since left and Reuters could not determine if it was still operational.

In its report published at the same time, Microsoft said it believed with "high confidence" that the spyware was "strongly linked to QuaDream." Israeli lawyer Vibeke Dank, whose email was listed on QuaDream's corporate registration form, did not return a message seeking comment. NSO did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Neither Citizen Lab nor Microsoft identified the targets of QuaDream's software, but the allegation could still be damaging for the firm. The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

[1/2] A computer keyboard lit by a displayed cyber code is seen in this illustration picture taken on March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File PhotoWASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - At least 50 U.S. government staffers stationed in 10 countries were targeted with commercial hacking tools, commonly known as spyware, a senior administration official said, highlighting the growing threat by offensive cyber vendors and prompting the White House to introduce rules to hinder the spying. The senior administration official cited Reuters' prior reporting as a reason for the broader internal government review. The new executive order is designed to apply pressure on the secretive industry by placing new restrictions on U.S. government defense, law enforcement and intelligence agencies' purchasing decisions, a senior administration official said. "We needed to have a standard where if we know that a company is selling to a country that is engaged in these outlined activities, that in and of itself is a red flag," said the senior administration official.

WASHINGTON, March 15 (Reuters) - Russian hackers appear to be preparing a renewed wave of cyber attacks against Ukraine, including a "ransomware-style" threat to organizations serving Ukraine's supply lines, a research report by Microsoft (MSFT.O) said on Wednesday. The report, authored by the tech giant’s cyber security research and analysis team, outlines a series of new discoveries about how Russian hackers have operated during the Ukraine conflict and what may come next. “Since January 2023, Microsoft has observed Russian cyber threat activity adjusting to boost destructive and intelligence gathering capacity on Ukraine and its partners’ civilian and military assets,” the report reads. Experts say the tactic of combining physical military operations with cyber techniques mirrors prior Russian activity. These developments have been paired with a growth in more stealthy Russian cyber operations designed to directly compromise organizations in countries allied to Ukraine, according to the report.

LONDON/WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - A Russian hacking team known as Cold River targeted three nuclear research laboratories in the United States this past summer, according to internet records reviewed by Reuters and five cyber security experts. Cold River has escalated its hacking campaign against Kyiv's allies since the invasion of Ukraine, according to cybersecurity researchers and western government officials. 'INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION'In May, Cold River broke into and leaked emails belonging to the former head of Britain's MI6 spy service. Reuters was unable independently to confirm why Cold River targeted the NGOs. "Google has tied this individual to the Russian hacking group Cold River and their early operations," he said.

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Domestic disinformation campaigns and homegrown threats to poll workers are emerging as bigger concerns ahead of the Nov. 8 U.S. congressional elections than foreign interference, according to U.S. cybersecurity and law enforcement officials. "At this time, we are not aware of any specific or credible threats to compromise or disrupt election infrastructure," top U.S. cybersecurity official Jen Easterly told reporters last week during a video conference on election security. Opinion polls have shown that a large majority of Republican voters believe Trump won that election. The Election Integrity Partnership, a non-partisan group that has helped the CISA combat election disinformation, said the vast majority of disinformation and false rumors about the 2020 election spread primarily through far-right influencers catering to Trump voters. Meta spokesperson Corey Chambliss declined to comment on the company's election security efforts.

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