Month: December 2020

The suspected Russian hackers behind the worst U.S. cyberattack in years used reseller access to Microsoft Corp. services to penetrate targets that had no compromised network software from SolarWinds Corp., investigators said.Updates to SolarWinds' Orion software were the only known point of entry until Thursday, when security company CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. said hackers had gained access to the vendor that sold it Office licenses and had used that to try to read CrowdStrike's email. It did not specifically identify the hackers as being the ones that compromised SolarWinds, but two people familiar with CrowdStrike's investigation said they were.CrowdStrike uses Office programs for word processing but not email. The failed attempt, made months ago, was pointed out to CrowdStrike by Microsoft on December 15.CrowdStrike, which does not use SolarWinds, said it had…

The U.S. cybersecurity agency said on Wednesday that a sprawling cyber espionage campaign made public earlier this month is affecting state and local governments, although it released few additional details.The hacking campaign, which used U.S. tech company SolarWinds as a springboard to penetrate federal government networks, was “impacting enterprise networks across federal, state, and local governments, as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a statement posted to its website.The CISA said last week that U.S. government agencies, critical infrastructure entities, and private groups were among those affected but did not specifically mention state or local bodies. So far only a handful of federal government agencies have officially confirmed having been affected, including the U.S. Treasury Department, the…

Twitter said Tuesday it would not automatically transfer the millions of followers of official Trump administration accounts to the incoming Biden administration but instead would give users the option to continue or not. The move affects followers of government-led accounts such as @WhiteHouse and @POTUS, which will be transferred to Joe Biden when he takes over the presidency in January. Twitter's decision won't affect the personal account @realDonaldTrump, which is frequently used by President Donald Trump and has some 88 million followers. FILE - President Donald Trump's Twitter feed is photographed on an Apple iPad in New York, June 27, 2019.The official government accounts "will not automatically retain their existing followers. Instead, Twitter will notify followers of these accounts to provide context that the content will be archived and allow them the choice…

U.S. lawmakers are expected to endorse $1.9 billion to fund a program to remove telecom network equipment that the U.S. government says poses national security risks as part of a year-end spending bill and COVID-19 bill, a source briefed on the matter said on Sunday.Lawmakers are also expected to back $3.2 billion for an emergency broadband benefit for low-income Americans.The Federal Communications Commission said in June it had formally designated China’s Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE Corp as threats, a declaration that bars U.S. firms from tapping an $8.3 billion government fund to purchase equipment from the companies.Earlier this month, the FCC finalized rules that require carriers with ZTE or Huawei equipment to "rip and replace" that equipment but is awaiting funding from Congress.Huawei said earlier this month it was…