The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/cybercrime/)
Criminal charges will be unsealed as soon as this week against hackers linked to the Chinese government who have allegedly engaged in a sophisticated scheme to break into U.S. technology service providers to compromise the networks of their clients,
Researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies are tracking how Russian operatives tend to exploit sensitive issues such as immigration and race in posts designed to drum up backlash to the justice system.
A federal grand jury charged two Iranian nationals with creating and deploying the “SamSam” ransomware that attacked vital Atlanta city computer systems this year in an unsuccessful attempt to extort tens of thousands of dollars from the local government.
Marriott said that personal details of guests going as far back as 2014 had been compromised. It was not immediately clear if hackers could use encrypted credit card information.
Efforts to “manage” the threat of cyber-sabotage from botnets— which harness multiple computers to disrupt the Internet— will fail, warns the Council on Foreign Relations. A new paper says they need to be destroyed through a multi-national effort.
The first case in which a death resulted from a hoax call to police in a practice known as “swatting” resulted in a plea deal carrying at least 20 years in prison for the defendant, who was convicted of numerous other prank calls.
In the last few years, the sophisticated connections enabled by cyber technology have emboldened criminals from all corners of world. TCR talks with Louise Shelley, whose new book explores how the illicit economy threatens our future.
Facebook blocked 30 Facebook accounts and 85 Instagram accounts for suspected “coordinated inauthentic behavior” linked to foreign groups attempting to interfere in Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections. The company acted after being tipped off Sunday by U.S. law enforcement officials.
White House national security adviser John Bolton suggests that the U.S. is signalling Russian operatives that their identities are known. A critic says such signaling is “pretty ineffective.”
The actions by Russian military spies were linked to the leaking of Olympic athletes’ drug-test data in an attempt to undermine international efforts to expose Russian doping.