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☆ Privacy Fears, Abuse Allegations Jeopardize Foreign Surveillance Tool
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The FBI says it has taken steps to protect privacy and civil liberties. intelligence officials are bracing for a fight in Congress over the renewal of a foreign surveillance tool they say is critical to fighting terrorism, thwarting hackers and spying on top rivals like China and Russia, but one that lawmakers in both parties say intrudes on Americans’ privacy. The spy program, classified details of which were revealed 10 years ago by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, gathers communications directly from U.S. firms like Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Apple Inc. It allows investigators to copy and search digital communications traversing the internet’s backbone. Senior intelligence officials widely regard it as among their most valuable tools.

☆ FBI Disrupts ‘Hive’ Ransomware Group
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Aruna Viswanatha | Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—U.S. authorities seized the servers of the notorious Hive ransomware group after entering its networks and capturing keys to decrypt its software, the Justice Department said on Thursday, calling its effort a “21st-century cyber stakeout.”The group linked to Hive ransomware is widely seen by authorities and cybersecurity experts as one of the most prolific and dangerous cybercriminal actors in recent years. They have been linked to attacks on more than 1,500 victims including hospitals and schools—and have extorted more than $100 million in ransom payments, the Justice Department said.

☆ U.S. Disrupts ‘Hive’ Ransomware Group
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Aruna Viswanatha | Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ U.S. Disrupts ‘Hive’ Ransomware Group, Seizes Its Servers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Aruna Viswanatha | Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON–U.S. authorities seized the servers of the notorious Hive ransomware group after entering its networks and capturing keys to decrypt its software, the Justice Department said on Thursday, calling its effort a “21st-century stakeout.”(This article will be updated as news develops))

☆ Head of Israeli Cyber Firm NSO Group Reaffirms Company Commitment to Spyware
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Byron Tau | Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—Embattled Israeli technology firm NSO Group acknowledged that its clients had sometimes misused the company’s high-powered hacking tools but defended the need to give law-enforcement and intelligence agencies the ability to digitally break into and monitor smartphones. In his first media interview since taking over as chief executive in 2022, Yaron Shohat said NSO Group has lost customers since the Biden administration levied stiff measures against the company in late 2021, but has stabilized itself financially and recently attracted new deals. Mr. Shohat didn’t specify how many customers NSO Group currently has but said it was around a few dozen.

☆ Biden, Trump Documents Discovery Shows Challenges in Keeping Government Secrets
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Dustin Volz | Warren P. Strobel | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—The discovery of classified documents at President Biden’s home and onetime office and former President Donald Trump’s resort has exposed longstanding risks in senior officials’ handling of secret files, while highlighting the increasingly unwieldy volume of classified material produced by the federal government. While most government officials can typically only read classified papers in secure facilities, some senior policy makers including the president and vice president need freer access to secret documents, current and former officials said.

☆ Little-Known Surveillance Program Captures Money Transfers Between U.S. and More Than 20 Countries
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Dustin Volz | Byron Tau | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON—Hundreds of federal, state and local U.S. law-enforcement agencies have access without court oversight to a database of more than 150 million money transfers between people in the U.S. and in more than 20 countries, according to internal program documents and an investigation by Sen. Ron Wyden . The database, housed at a little-known nonprofit called the Transaction Record Analysis Center, or TRAC, was set up by the Arizona state attorney general’s office in 2014 as part of a settlement reached with Western Union to combat cross-border trafficking of drugs and people from Mexico. It has since expanded to allow officials of more than 600 law-enforcement entities—from federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to small-town police departments in nearly every state—to monitor the flow of funds through money services between the U.S. and countries around the world.

☆ Bill to Ban TikTok on Government Devices Faces Uncertain Future in House
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( John D. Mckinnon | Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

TikTok has said it safeguards the data of its users and wouldn’t share it with the Chinese government. WASHINGTON—The Senate’s move to expand a ban on TikTok being downloaded on government-issued smartphones and other devices faces a doubtful future in the House, despite widening concerns over the Chinese-owned video app’s security risks. The Senate passed a similar bill in 2020, and the legislation stalled out in the House. With just days left in the current session, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) was noncommittal Thursday when asked whether the bill would receive a House vote before adjournment.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, based in Washington, told Arqit Quantum that its action was ‘a fact-finding inquiry,’ the U.K. company said. British cybersecurity company Arqit Quantum Inc. is facing an investigation from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over its merger with a special-purpose acquisition company last year, the company disclosed Wednesday. Arqit saw its market value rise from $1.4 billion to over $4.5 billion soon after it completed the SPAC merger—a form of public listing—in September 2021 as investors embraced the company and its projections of surging revenue and profits in the emerging sectors of digital security and advanced cryptography. Its shares have since fallen significantly amid a broad investor retreat from SPACs and young high-growth companies.

☆ U.S. to Probe Cyberattacks Linked to Lapsus$
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration on Friday said it would investigate recent hacks linked to an extortion-focused hacking collective known as Lapsus$ that over the past year has victimized some of the world’s biggest technology companies and broken into critical infrastructure systems. The U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board, a panel of experts from various government agencies and the private sector, will examine the group’s recent high-profile hacks, which researchers say have sometimes included extortion demands but at other times seem motivated by a desire for notoriety.

☆ U.S. Releases 9/11 Commission Interview With George W. Bush, Dick Cheney
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Dustin Volz | Warren P. Strobel | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A rough transcript of a 2004 interview George W. Bush and Dick Cheney gave to a government commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks provides a glimpse of the former president’s and vice president’s views of the seminal event that defined their eight years in the White House. The April 2004 interview with the bipartisan 9/11 commission, which took place in the Oval Office, included discussion of intelligence warnings before the attacks and the events that unfolded on the day of Sept. 11, according to the copy of the 31-page document. It also describes Mr. Bush acknowledging that Air Force One had poor communications while he was on the plane shortly after the attacks began—and Mr. Bush’s assertion that he gave Mr. Cheney the authority to shoot down commercial airliners that were unresponsive.

☆ China-Linked Internet Trolls Try Fueling Divisions in U.S. Midterms, Researchers Say
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Internet trolls linked to China are trying to fuel political division and discord in the U.S. ahead of the November midterm elections, suggesting Beijing is interested in meddling in American politics after largely abstaining during previous contests, according to researchers at Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit. The efforts, which also include attempts to create rifts between the U.S. and its European allies around the war in Ukraine, appear to have had minimal impact so far, the researchers said. But they warned that the troll group’s tradecraft was rapidly maturing, and the group seemed intent on injecting disinformation into Americans’ internet feeds in ways that resemble past Russian and Iranian efforts to disrupt elections.

☆ U.S. Says Chinese Tried to Obstruct Huawei Prosecution
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Sadie Gurman | Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Attorney General Merrick Garland said China tried to ‘undermine the integrity of our judicial system,’ during a press conference in Washington. WASHINGTON—Two Chinese intelligence officers tried to bribe a U.S. law-enforcement official to obtain what they believed was inside information about the U.S. criminal case against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co., prosecutors alleged in a case unsealed Monday. The defendants, Guochun He and Zheng Wang, were charged in a federal criminal complaint filed in Brooklyn last week and made public on Monday. The charging papers don’t name Huawei, instead referring to an unnamed telecommunications company based in China. People familiar with the case said it concerns Huawei.

☆ State Department Urges Silicon Valley to Aid National Security Effort
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-15 | by ( Vivian Salama | Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—The State Department is expanding its outreach to U.S. technology firms to get them more involved in some of the world’s top national security challenges, from the war in Ukraine to growing competition with China, U.S. officials said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Silicon Valley starting Sunday as part of the push to make cybersecurity among the State Department’s leading priorities. He will meet with corporate leaders “to highlight the key role for technology diplomacy in advancing U.S. economic and national security,” according to the State Department.

☆ Biden Advised to Declassify Full Intelligence Report on Khashoggi Murder
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi leadership, was brutally killed in Istanbul in 2018. President Biden hasn’t declassified a full U.S. intelligence report on the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite a government panel recommending its release to the public, according to documents and people familiar with the matter. A spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House declined to comment on the panel’s recommendations or the administration’s reasons for not declassifying the report.

A growing body of evidence suggests that pro-Russian hackers and online activists are working with the country’s military intelligence agency, according to researchers at Google. Western officials and security experts are interested in the possible Kremlin links because it would help explain Moscow’s intentions both inside and outside Ukraine despite recent military setbacks that prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin this week to announce a mobilization push.

☆ Chinese Tech Threatens Future Global Security, Warns U.K. Spy Chief
▼ + stars: | 2021-10-08 | by ( Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

LONDON—Beijing’s efforts to exert vice-like control over technology both internationally and within China’s borders threatens future global security and freedom, the chief of the U.K.’s electronic intelligence agency said. Jeremy Fleming, the director of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, said Beijing was aiming to use an array of existing and emerging technological means, including digital currency and satellites, to control markets and people, extend surveillance and censorship and export its authoritarian system around the world.

☆ Intelligence Leak Fuels Senate Effort to Protect Government Secrets
▼ + stars: | 2001-09-11 | by ( Dustin Volz | Lindsay Wise | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

A leak of classified documents on the Ukraine war and a dozen other topics has raised questions around how the government handles state secrets. WSJ explains how these documents are supposed to be kept secure. Photo Illustration: Madeline MarshallWASHINGTON—A bipartisan group of senators plans to introduce legislation as soon as this week seeking to overhaul how the U.S. government classifies and protects its most sensitive national security secrets, according to people familiar with the matter, a push that comes in the wake of a recent damaging leak of intelligence files. A pair of complementary bills would attempt to both reduce the ever-expanding amount of material that is classified by, among other things, investing in automated technologies that would make it easier to downgrade material or make it public, the people said, while also looking to plug perceived gaps in the existing security-clearance process, which has failed to catch a wide array of leakers since changes after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks loosened access controls to some classified material.

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