Cybersecurity

FBI Director Christopher Wray indicated that Russian and Chinese hackers are trying to steal U.S. coronavirus vaccine research.

China’s state-run Global Times editorialized on Tuesday that a “major cyber governance revolution” is needed to counter evolving online threats.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced the launch of a “global data security initiative” on Tuesday The plan mimics the U.S. “Clean Network” initiative in theory, but in practice is meant to intimidate other countries out of following America’s advice to blacklist Chinese companies from participating in their 5G wireless networks and other electronic infrastructure.

Australian Defense Minister Linda Reynolds said on Thursday that her nation is under sustained cyberattack from what senior officials described as “a sophisticated state-based actor.”

China’s state-run Global Times claimed on Monday that the United State has become such a threat to cyberspace that China should threaten nuclear war in the event of an American hacker attack, especially if those American hackers make an effort to weaken China’s nuclear warfare systems.

A former chief of Britain’s security service, MI6, warned top politicians in Britain that if their children use the Chinese social media app Tik Tok, the communist regime may have a backdoor into their private data.

Chinese state media continued its frenzied response to the prospective U.S. ban on  TikTok with editorials slamming the Trump administration for “robbery” and a “flagrant heist” because the app can only survive in the U.S. if Microsoft agrees to purchase it.

An unnamed U.S. security official told Reuters on Friday that hackers linked to the Chinese government have targeted Moderna, Inc., a Massachusetts-based biotech firm conducting research on vaccines for the Wuhan coronavirus.

Hackers tied to the Chinese government infiltrated the Vatican’s computer networks in recent months according to a report Tuesday from the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

A Dutch cybersecurity firm called Sansec issued a report on Monday accusing North Korean hackers of waging a year-long campaign to steal credit card information from American and European online retailers. 

Six former eBay executives and employees are currently facing federal charges for allegedly cyberstalking a couple that was critical of the company in an online e-commerce newsletter. The eBay team’s campaign of terror included sending a bloody mask, live cockroaches, and a funeral wreath to their targets, after a senior executive at the company allegedly said it was time to “take down” the editors. One text message said the team’s goal was to “crush this lady.”

The office of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen announced on Monday that information security services are investigating a suspected cyberattack.

According to reports in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times on Sunday, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will soon issue a warning that hackers linked to the Chinese government are trying to steal data from American researchers working on a vaccine for the Wuhan coronavirus.

Foreign states are mounting “utterly reprehensible” cyber-attacks against British universities researching the coronavirus, according to security sources. 

Nintendo UK has advised users to activate a two-step authentication on their accounts after 160,000 users were reportedly compromised in early April.

A group of 400 cybersecurity volunteers from across the world has banded together as the “COVID-19 CTI League” to fight back against hacking related to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Geng Shuang held a press conference on Monday in which he accused the United States of being the world’s worst sponsor of cybercrimes.

Chinese officials and state media on Tuesday condemned the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday for indicting four People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military officers for the massive hacking attack on the Equifax credit reporting agency, a 2017 cybercrime that pilfered valuable corporate data and personal information about over 147 million Americans.

Reuters on Wednesday reported on the exploits of Charming Kitten, a hacker group linked to the Iranian government that poses as journalists and attempts to trick victims into divulging passwords and other security information.

The website of an obscure government organization called the Federal Depository Library Program was hijacked over the weekend by hackers claiming to be linked to Iran.

A massive data leak from Facebook has exposed the names, personal IDs, and phone numbers of 267 million users — most of them American — on the dark web, according to reports.

Credit card giant Visa is warning its cardholders that cyber criminals are targeting gas pumps in order to steal personal credit card data.

Democrat presidential hopeful Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) released a plan Monday that describes how she would secure elections against cyber and disinformation threats should she be elected president.

The United Nations is investigating at least 35 cyberattacks thought to have been perpetrated by North Korean hackers against targets in 17 countries, with the goal of stealing or extorting enough money to finance the rogue Communist nation’s nuclear missile program.

News broke over the weekend that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the agency that took over domestic security after the dissolution of the KGB, was targeted by hackers over the past two months. The size of the data files posted online by the hackers suggests it was the worst data breach ever suffered by a Russian intelligence agency.

A report published by the Washington Post on Monday charged China’s telecom giant Huawei with secretly helping North Korea create and maintain its wireless network, possibly in violation of U.S. bans on the delivery of sensitive electronic equipment to the isolated Communist regime in Pyongyang. Another report from Czech Republic media accused the company of secretly harvesting personal information about its Czech customers.

If 5G wireless is so clearly a concern for U.S. intelligence, a portion of the intelligence budget could be invested in creating an American competitor to China’s dominant Huawei corporation.

China is the United States’ main national security challenge for the next 50 to 100 years, the Army general picked to become the top military officer in the United States said during a Senate hearing on Thursday.

A study published this week by researchers from Fulbright University Vietnam and the London-based Henry Jackson Society revealed much deeper ties between employees of the Huawei telecom company and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) than the corporation has previously admitted.

The UK Guardian reported on Tuesday that border police in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, home of the oppressed Uighur Muslims, are installing secret surveillance apps on the smartphones of travelers who enter the region and raiding those phones for personal information.